Fate - A New Beginning
by Newbie1104
Summary: After the fifth Holy Grail War, Shirou has to go to Tokyo to continue his study since his previous school had been closed down. Once again, Fate refuses to leave him alone and made him the only male in the whole world to be able to activate an 'I.S'. What's going to happen from now on? WAITING TO BE REWRITTEN, NOT RECOMMENDED.
1. Chapter 1: A New Beginning

**Author's note:**

**This is my first fanfic, I hope that you will enjoy it. And I would be very grateful for your comments and reviews, so that I can improve.**

**As you can see already, this is a FSN x I.S fanfic. But since it's fiction, the characters of both worlds may have a bit of change in their personality. There are also some changes in the event of FSN, and in the description about I.S academy as well.**

**And in this story, I used a mixture of all 3 routes in FSN, not just a specific one.**

**That's all for now. Please enjoy.**

* * *

Shirou Emiya was standing at the entrance of Tokyo High school examination center.

"So cold..." He mumbled as his entire body shivered. "Why do I have to go all the way to Tokyo to take an entrance exam, there are plenty of other high schools that is nearer to Fuyuki."

It wasn't like he didn't know the answer though.

It was almost 1 year since the end of the fifth Holy Grail War. And due to a reckless action of a fake Master during the war, that his Servant - Rider - had constructed a Blood Fort - a bounded field that absorbed the life force of every living things within its boundary - over Homurahara High school.

Luckily no one died at the end since Shirou and Rin managed to stop Rider and her Master - Matou Shinji before they managed to complete their scheme, but the aftermath was still not beautiful. The Fort, despite being not really completed, was still activated, causing almost the entire students and school staff to be hospitalized. Although the lightest cases were just people losing consciousness, there were still a large number of victims suffered from body deformation, with melting skin and the like. Of course no one ( normal people at least ) could explain what happened, so the government covered the entire event as a gas leak and attacks from biological weapons.

As a result, the school was declared a dangerous zone and closed down until further notice. And even though almost all of the victim students and teachers had fully recovered, their only option was to transfer into another school to continue studying, or teaching in case of teachers. And Shirou was one of them. After 8 months of lazing around the house, now it was time for him to start studying again.

And for the reason why he had to go this far to Tokyo, instead of choosing a nearer school, that was because Fuji-nee ( a.k.a Fujimura Taiga, Shirou's guardian ) had a friend here, a childhood one even. Her name was Chifuyu Orimura. Shirou only met her a few times in his elementary school years, but he knew very well that her and Fuji-nee were very close.

"They even practiced kendo together," he shivered again. Anyone could stand against that Taiga in kendo was definitely not normal. It wasn't like Taiga's skill could be compared to a certain blond swordwoman he knew, but it was above that of a normal human for sure.

Anyway, since Fuji-nee had contacted Chifuyu and asked her to let Shirou stay at her apartment while he studying in Tokyo, and had gotten a "Yes.", he had to come here to take the exam.

"You don't have to worry about renting fee and transportation fee while you are there," said Taiga before sending Shirou off. "Chifuyu's house is very close to the school you applied for, so you can go there on foot."

Well that was basically true, so he couldn't argue at all.

"Oh poor me..." He sighed, and entered the examination building. "Now let's see, where is the room I'm supposed to go to..."

* * *

"Seriously this place was like a maze," Shirou mumbled and resigned to the fact that now he was completely lost. "Isn't there a map or something? How do the staff find their way around here anyway?"

Cursing the person who designed this damned building, he decided to find a staff and ask for the way around, before turning at a corner and find himself standing in front of a large wooden door. And suddenly, his nose was invaded by a strange but familiar smell, no doubt coming out from inside the room.

Prana.

Every magus can sense the presence of prana around him/ herself. The way they feel it wasn't the same for everyone though. It was different from person to person. It could be in the sense of touch, or sight, or even taste. And in Shirou's case, it was smell.

The smell appeared for him was also varies. As for the case of the Blood Fort constructed in Fuyuki, it had a sweet smell, and for whatever it was inside that room, it felt...metallic. It wasn't very strong though, only about the same as a normal magus. But the source of this prana definitely wasn't that of a magus, or a human for that matter.

Shirou decided to check out the room, as he was curious about the 'thing' inside. He pushed the door open slowly with one hand, while the other prepared to trace the first sword that comes to his mind in case of something unexpected. It never hurts to be careful, whatever was behind that door, it could be dangerous.

But to his relief, nothing happened. After entering the room, Shirou finally saw the source of the mysterious prana.

The sight in front of him left Shirou breathless. Kneeling on one leg in the middle of the room was something like a medieval armor. Its posture was like that of a knight swearing loyalty to his king.

But really, despite being called an 'armor', the thing's protection rate was ridiculously low as it only covered minor parts of the body, leaving most of the fatal ones like the head, neck and chest uncovered.

_So this is an IS..._ Thought Shirou. Of course he knew what it was. Despite him being not 'very good' in technology, the Infinite Stratos - IS for short - had been the center of media attention for years since the day it was invented by a Dr. Whatever-her-name-was. It wasn't like it was important to Shirou anyway.

The I.S was originally created as a multi-purpose power suit for space operations. But somewhere along the way, it was modified by some of the specialists, and turned into a 'war machine'. However, for whatever nonsense reason it was, all of the countries involved designated it as a 'Sport flying device', thus a new sport was born.

_It's ridiculous,_ thought Shirou as he examined the armor. _A sport where people get on a barely protected suit and battle each other until one side runs out of energy to keep their shield up. It's too dangerous. What if the other party couldn't stop in time, and accidentally injured the one who lost? It could be fatal..._ He sighed again.

The I.S, despite being all powerful as it was, had a big flaw in its system: It only reacted to females. Therefore, could only be used by one.

That mean the metal pile in front of Shirou was just what it was - a metal pile - to him.

But it was definitely the source of the metallic smell prana he felt earlier. Even though Shirou had seen it before, it was only on newspaper. So he couldn't tell that it was a prana source. Now that the thing was right in front of him, he could feel clearly. The prana came from a small part of its body, the core.

"Hmm... Interesting," Shirou mumbled as he reached out and touched the armor... "Does that mean it used prana as its power source?" ...and poured his own od into the machine, attempted a 'Structure Analysis'.

Naturally, all of the I.S's aspects appeared inside Shirou's mind, from its functions, to the way to operate it, and so on... Basically, he saw and remembered all of its features.

But what he didn't expect, was that the armor in front of him accepted his od. And as Shirou felt a bit of his od - no more than a small sip - taken from him, went into the IS's core, the machine started to activate.

_You must be kidding me..._ Obviously Shirou had a tendency of being pulled into unexpected mess. Face palmed himself as he saw two instructors ran through the door he came from, accepted that he was busted doing something he shouldn't be able to.

"Wha..." One of the two instructors stopped dead on her track, seemed to lost her ability to speak as she watch the unbelievable scene happening inside the room.

"A...a boy activated an I.S..." The other one murmured in disbelief.

* * *

That was what happened 2 months ago.

After that small incident where Shirou accidentally became the first male ever to have activated an I.S, he had been dragged out of his house to meet a few important looking people, then finally accepted to the I.S Academy. And today was his first school day.

That led to an embarrassing situation, since only females ( with the exception of Shirou himself ) were able to use I.S, the school was an all-girl one. Now being the only male on campus, he was surrounded by nothing but girls his age.

That wasn't to say he didn't have any experience with girls. Heck, Shirou might have gone further with them than some of the boys his age. But still, the situations were completely different. On one hand, it was him with Saber - the spirit of the Legendary King Arthur, or the prodigy magus Rin Tohsaka in a war of life and death. On the other, was him and a bunch of excited school girls in a completely school-like atmosphere, minus the fighting machine part.

_This is gonna be troublesome..._ Shirou massaged his forehead. Needless to say, Fuji-nee, Sakura and Illya weren't very happy with that arrangement.

Matou Sakura was Shirou's friend back at Homurahara High, and she was one grade below him. She also was the sister of that fake Master Matou Shinji. Thinking of the bastard's name and his cruel action still enraged Shirou, but he by no mean hated Sakura. He liked her even, the girl often visited Emiya Resident in Fuyuki, and help him with various chores around the house.

And Illya in some way could be described as Shirou's little sister. As she was the child of his adopted father - Kiritsugu Emiya. The little girl with beautiful silver hair was also a Master in the fifth Grail War. After her Servant Berserker got defeated by Shirou and Saber, Illya moved in with him. And they had become very close ever since.

Well, the reason that they were unhappy was obvious. While there was no problem with the academy itself, as there were mundane subjects along with I.S training, they knew Shirou fully well to know his obsession with saving people, despite putting himself in danger. He wasn't as bad as he was during the War though. In eight months at home, Shirou was trained in both magecraft and swordmanship by Rin and Saber, and he had improved greatly. Especially the fact that he now no longer desperately putting himself in front of others and got injured.

Well, most of the times anyway. There are still special occasions when Shirou's heroic blood acted up, making him do some stupid things. And the girls worried that with the power of the I.S backing him up, the frequency of those occasions would just increase.

There were something else in case of Sakura though. As they were arguing about Shirou's acceptance into the academy, between others' bashing, he swore that he could hear the girl mumbled something like 'surrounded by girls' and 'go with him there'. Of course, Shirou was smart enough to pretend that he didn't hear anything at all.

_Was she jealous? It's not like I go there to hit on girls. Hell, I didn't even plan to go there in the first place,_ thought Shirou as he remembered their not-so-pleasant talk. Shook his head to get rid of the unnecessary thoughts, Shirou stepped into his classroom, prepared for whatever waiting for him in the future ahead.

* * *

"Is everyone here? Yes? Then let's start SHR. ( Student homeroom meeting )"

That was Yamada Maya-sensei, the vice homeroom teacher, who was now standing in front of the blackboard and smile earnestly at the entire class. She had a petite figure, and could be easily mistaken for a student. And Shirou honestly thought she was one, until her introduction.

The way Yamada dressed with clothes that didn't fit made her looked like a child being forced into adult's clothes. And on her face was a pair of big, hazy glasses that looked out of place on her large, olive green eyes.

_She looks like the type of person that wouldn't hurt anyone,_ thought Shirou as he observing the vice homeroom teacher.

But appearance could be deceiving. If the Grail War had taught Shirou anything, then it would be that a person's size doesn't indicate his or her strength at all. Illya was a prime example for that statement. Despite having the appearance of a 10 years old, as the vessel for the Grail itself, she was even stronger than that Tohsaka Rin, in term of magecraft of course.

"Everyone, please get along nicely next year," said Yamada cheerfully.

But unlike her, the entire class was filled with an awkward atmosphere. The reason for that was clear though.

Shirou was the only male student in class. And he no doubt could feel the gazes of all other students on him. And his seat position in the middle row didn't help it at all.

"Ehem..." Yamada-sensei continued, oblivious of the awkwardness around her. "Let's move on to the introduction, we will go by seating arrangements."

After that, one by one, Shirou's classmates went up to the black board and introduce themselves. The event helped taking the attention away from him for a while, which was good. But when it was finally his turn, it became even worse, as Shirou now stand in front of the whole class, and the pressure from their stares wasn't a joke.

"Hello everyone," Shirou started, feeling that he must end this as soon as possible without leaving a bad impression. "I'm Shirou Emiya, transferred here from Homurahara High school in Fuyuki city."

Silence. But he decided to ignore it and go on.

"Despite sitting in this first year classroom, I'm actually 17 years old, a third year student back in Fuyuki. But since I'm completely clueless when it comes to I.S, I have to learn it from the beginning. It's nice to meet you all, I hope we can get along great."

Now there were whispers among his classmates, and he sighed in relief. He couldn't hear whatever they were whispering about, but by the looks on their faces, at least it seemed like he made a fairly good introduction.

"Excuse me, Emiya-san," a girl with shoulder length black hair sitting near the back of the class said as Shirou about to come back to his seat. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Yes, of course," he blinked at the girl in surprise.

"You said you transferred from Homurahara High, right?"

He nodded, wondering what she was getting at.

"I heard about what happened there," the girl continued. "Is it true? You know, about the gas leak and stuffs..."

Shirou frowned at the question, it wasn't like he didn't want to talk about it, and it was nothing to be kept hidden. But remembering about the event left a bad taste in his mind.

"Yeah, it's true," he finally answered in an indifferent voice. "There was a gas leak and biological stuff too," well, obviously that was a lie, but it wasn't like Shirou could tell her the truth.

"So you were one of the victim too?" The girl kept pushing, didn't notice his frown.

"I was," he answered immediately, deciding that he would just lie his way out of this. "But I really don't remember anything, we all lost our consciousness, remember?" Of course that wasn't how it went. Shirou and Rin were at the school when the bounded field went on, but their magic resistance kept them from being affected like other people on the compound.

"Ah...that's true, isn't it?" She slumped, disappointment showed on her face. "But do you remember how..."

"Ok, stop asking him unpleasant questions on his first day at school, Takashi-san," Yamada-sensei decided to step in and stop the curious girl.

As if suddenly realized what she had been doing so far, the girl named Takashi blushed hard, and slowly sat down. "Sorry, Emiya-san, I didn't mean to..."

"Don't worry about it," Shirou waved his hand. "It's just natural to be curious about something like that. And I don't mind telling you about it, except for the fact that I don't even know anything to say."

"Yes...you are right, Emiya-san. Thank you for answering me," Takashi mumbled as she kept her red face down.

"You are welcome," said Shirou with a gentle smile as he went back to his seat. Well, at least his introduction didn't go too bad, and he thought that he managed to score a good first impression.

After that, the introducing speech went on until the last girl came back to her seat. Shirou did pay attention, but it wasn't easy to remember all of 29 girls' name on the first day. Instead, he focused to pick out some of the girls that stood out. And there were only two of them.

The first one was Shinonono Houki, Shirou knew her as she often visited and practiced kendo under Fuji-nee's instruction when they were still kids. He didn't recognize her at first, but after hearing the name, and seeing her familiar hair style, Shirou was sure that was her. The way she kept staring at him in what he deducted as annoyance, and quickly looked away when he looked back at her confirmed that even more. He didn't know what he did that annoyed Houki though.

The second one was a British blond girl named Cecilia Alcott. From what she said during the introduction, she was one of the I.S pilot who represented her country, thus an elite. So Shirou assumed that this Cecilia should be skilled at piloting that armor. But aside from that and her good looks, she had an annoying attitude and looked down at everyone else. It would be hard to deal with her, but Shirou decided that he would keep an eye on the British classmate.

"Ehem..." Yamada-sensei had once again taken the position in front of the black board. "Thank you for your introductions, everyone. And now I'd like to introduce you to our homeroom teacher, Chifuyu Orimura-sensei!"

_What did she just say?_ Thought Shirou as he raised an eyebrow at the familiar name. And when said person made her way into the classroom, he was shocked even more to confirm that his suspicion was correct. Seeing Houki again was nowhere near the shocking level of this homeroom teacher's arrival.

That was definitely Taiga's childhood friend, Chifuyu Orimura. The one who agreed upon Shirou's lodging in her apartment, thus a part of the reasons why he had come to Tokyo in the first place.

_She is an I.S instructor?_ Shirou wondered, didn't realize that he had stood up, and had been staring at his homeroom teacher in surprise.

"What's the matter, Emiya-kun?" Asked Chifuyu as she saw the boy's sudden behave.

Snapped back to reality, Shirou quickly shook his head "Nothing, nothing at all, Orimura-san." He even accidentally called her '-san' in the middle of a class, but it was too late when he realized what he had done. And that made Chifuyu's eyebrows twitch.

"Call me 'Orimura-sensei' when we are in school," she scolded Shirou. "Seriously, you are just as idiotic as Taiga described."

"Yes, ma-am," Shirou replied in a serious tone as he made a mental note to cut Fuji-nee's share of food when he came back to visit next time.

"Kyaaa! It's the real Chifuyu-sama!" A cry from behind made Shirou almost jumped. And it was soon followed by a series of girly shrieks.

"I'm so happy to be taught by Chifuyu-sama!"

"I've always been your fan!"

"I've come all the way from Hokkaido to be taught by you, Chifuyu-sama!"

...and some others that belonged to the 'fangirls meet their idol' category. Chifuyu, on the other hand, just let out a disappointed sigh looking at the unfolding chaos.

"I see," she began. "My class this year is full of idiots again. Are these fools really come here just to attend my class?"

That was genuine disappointment, nothing about her sarcasm was an act at all.

And then ignored all the cries of her 'fans', Chifuyu turned to Shirou again.

"What are you doing? Why didn't you sit down already?"

"Ah yes, Orimura-sensei," this time Shirou really jumped, since he was busy watching his classmates went crazy over Fuji-nee's friend. He had no idea Chifuyu was this famous. It was only natural though, since he didn't care much for the technology world.

"Now listen here," Chifuyu announced to the entire class. "I'm Chifuyu Orimura, your homeroom teacher this year. And I'll make sure to use this time to drill the I.S basics, operations and controls into your heads. If you don't understand anything, I will teach you until you do. You can dislike my attitude, but you still have to do what I say, got it?"

Shirou didn't sure if anyone beside him got that declaration of war, but reality helped him by showing that no one did. Apparently, the shrieks of the girls had become more extreme and things like 'Chifuyu-sama, please scold us more!' and 'I could die for Chifuyu-sama' could be heard from the overly excited crowd. He now really doubted that his classmates were all M.

* * *

Homeroom ended without any further incident as Yamada and Chifuyu managed to calm the overly enthusiasm mob. And they moved on to the next class - Basics of I.S. There are five classes a day, with the first and the last classes were about I.S, and the rests were mundane subjects like Japanese, History and Math.

I.S academy as its name suggested, was a school funded by Japanese government itself to teach and protect the young I.S pilots. As these people are the future of national defense, the government had to interfere fairly if anything happened to them. However, the results of every researches within the academy had to be shared between involved countries as Japan had no right to hide them or remain silent.

Also, as a mutual agreement between I.S agencies, the academy would open its door to accept all foreign students, and protect them as it would with its own pilots. As a result, only half of the students there were Japanese.

And as the only male being able to operate an I.S, Shirou wasn't only well known within the school. Now every other countries had heard of him, and his face often show up on newspaper. Needless to say, being the kind of person he was, Shirou saw this sudden fame as nothing but a bother. And the fact that he had got several invitations from other countries' I.S teams, or even scientists ( for his DNA ) didn't help the matter at all.

* * *

Shirou's first I.S class was a total failure. While he was able to 'understand' the machine with his 'Structure Analysis', facing the scientific terms within the textbooks and Yamada's lecture was an entirely different matter. Being a technology noob, he could only understand about a third of everything. And Shirou himself admitted that if this situation kept up, it definitely wouldn't end well.

"And that's everything for today's class, is there anything you didn't get? If there is, don't hesitate to ask me," Yamada happily concluded.

"Uhm...sensei?" Shirou raised his hand, she did say 'don't hesitate' after all.

"Yes? Emiya-kun. Is there anything you didn't get?"

"Ehm... actually..." He was trying to find a better way to put this, but there simply wasn't one. "I didn't understand almost everything, sensei."

"Eh?" Yamada's eye went wide at his confession. "Almost everything? But...but..." And tear started filling up her eyes. "...was it because of my teaching..."

Shirou could clearly feel his classmates' stares on him, as if they were saying together 'hey you made a female teacher cry, you insensitive bastard. Hurry up and apologize'.

"No it wasn't your fault, sensei," he said hastily, a bit panicked at what happening in front of him. Certainly, he didn't expect this, _what kind of teacher cried in front of her students because of something like that anyway?_

"Really?" The vice homeroom teacher looked at Shirou with her teary eyes.

"Really. It was a problem on my part, sensei. So please don't cry," he said, feeling relieved as the petite female in front of him stopped sobbing. He had few experiences when it came to crying girls, as all of the females he ever knew were strong-willed ones, who could easily looked after themselves. "You see, before studying here, I had little chance of learning about all these hi-tech things, so I had problems understanding scientific terms. And since that was the case, the handbook I was given before school starts wasn't of any help."

"Well in that case, it can't be helped," Chifuyu, who had been standing and observing the class in a corner, suddenly spoke up. And that made Shirou almost jumped again. Seriously, she should stop doing that.

"Stay back after class today, Yamada will help you to learn and remember all the terms," said the homeroom teacher. Well, that was obviously a good idea, so Shirou saw no reason to refuse. But before he was able to give his reply, another loud 'Eh?' came from behind Chifuyu. The entire class turned their gazes to the source of the voice to find a deep blushing Yamada with both hands covering her face.

"Staying after class, just the two of us..." Still hiding her face, she started with an extremely embarrassed voice. "...but we are student and teacher..."

Shirou went completely pale hearing her muttering. It wasn't like he disliked Yamada, but he had absolutely no experience dealing with this kind of girl. And she said it herself too, they were student and teacher. _Was she really a teacher? She was like a teenage girl with wild fantasies about guys._

"I...I appreciate the offer, Orimura-sensei," Shirou said in a hurry. "But I think it's better to...study by myself after all." In truth, he was about to suggest having a classmate to help him. But then he remembered that he was the only male here. And Shirou was very familiar with girls' gossip network, having been in a high school himself. He believed that if he ever made that kind of suggestion, then there would be another rumor about him dating a girl only after one day in school to go with his already dangerously famous status of the only male I.S pilot.

"You think I would trust you to study by yourself?" Chifuyu glared at him. "Stay back, that's an order. And Yamada-sensei, please get yourself together."

"Y...Yes? Ah right," seemed like Yamada finally snapped back to reality, she quickly regained her posture. "That's everything, I will be seeing you after class, Emiya-kun."

Sighed and slumped down his seat, Shirou face palmed himself, he really wasn't of any good when it came to avoiding troubles. But what's done is done, there was no use brooding about it now.

* * *

"Can I have a moment?"

It was the first break between class, and Shirou had already been visited by what he guessed was trouble. Well, 'trouble' actually was Cecilia Alcott, the British representative that Shirou saw earlier. She was a natural blond, her hair curled at the end revealed a sense of nobility. And her blue eyes showed that she was clearly upset. Even Shirou was amazed that he made 2 girls unhappy on his first day. He just didn't know how he managed that.

"Hey! Are you listening?" Now the annoyance showed in her voice too.

"Yes. Do you need something, Alcott-san?" Shirou looked up at her, wondered what the foreign classmate wanted from him.

Cecilia frowned, her arms folded in front of her chest. "What kind of respond is that? You know who I am, so you must know that it's an honor to talk with me."

Now Shirou was annoyed too, he didn't like this kind of girl. In this world where only females could pilots the I.S, the 'female=great' prejudice had been born. It was a normal sight in Tokyo to see men being bullied, or treated like servants. Luckily that trend hadn't spread to Fuyuki yet.

And as a matter of fact, Shirou refused to follow such stupid prejudice.

"I believe I'm being polite toward you, Alcott-san," he replied, trying to keep his voice unemotional.

"Polite?" Seemed like his words upset the blond even more, her face now flushed with anger. "I'm a representative candidate student, an elite, and I got top score in the entrance exam. You should have a better attitude toward me," she sighed. "Seriously, what a backwater country, even its men don't know their place at all."

_Ah, that explain her attitude,_ thought Shirou. Living in a female dominated world like this, plus her status and achievements, that was a natural behave. But it wouldn't be good for Cecilia if she continued being like that.

"Please watch your words, Alcott-san," Shirou's glare made Cecilia flinched away a bit without realizing it. His voice was now cold and sharp. "This 'backwater' country was the one who invented the I.S, making you who you are now. So please stop with the insults, I won't forgive you if you continue."

There were several gasping sounds from the entire class, the girls no doubt had been listening in Shirou and Cecilia's conversation, and were clearly shocked by the boy's attitude.

Cecilia was no different, her eyes went wide and her jaw dropped in surprise. Obviously she had never been talked down like this before, especially by a guy.

"Won't forgive... You...did you just threaten me?" Finally she managed to speak, and her voice filled with rage. "How disrespectful..."

"Yes, I believe I just did," Shirou told her coldly. "And Alcott-san, to me, respect is something earned, not freely given. So please forgive me if I wasn't being respectful toward you, since you haven't earned any from me."

Suddenly, a pair of hands slammed hard on the table in front of him, making a loud 'THUMP' as an enraged Cecilia declared.

"That's it. It's a duel."

The entire class gasped again.

"A duel?" Shirou was puzzled by her sudden declaration.

"Yes, don't tell me you don't know what a duel is. I can't have myself being disgraced and don't do something about it."

"And you want to settle that with a fight?" Shirou was honestly surprised. "Sorry, but I don't fight girls. Even if you say girls are greater than boy, I still can't bring myself to hit you."

"Wha..." Cecilia seemed to be taken aback by his word, her face flushed, but not from anger anymore. "What are you saying? I'm talking about I.S! I.S duel!"

"Oh..?" Shirou, despite being in his serious mode, blushed a little too. "I'm sorry, so that was what you mean. But even if it's about I.S, I don't think I can..."

"You can't refuse!" Cecilia quickly interrupted him. "Are you planning to disgrace me even further?"

"But..." Shirou was about to say something else. But when he looked into the blond classmate's eyes, he saw determination behind her anger. It seemed that pride was very important for Cecilia, and kept declining her would do more harm than good.

"Ahh..." He sighed, accepted the unavoidable. "Fine, I accept your challenge." He would figure something out to solve this later.

"Good," said Cecilia, now regained her composure. "Then I will give you one week to prepare yourself. We will have our duel by then."

"There's no need to wait that long," Shirou replied instantly, making the blond frowned. "We can do this by tomorrow if you want."

That was not a bluff, or overconfident on Shirou's part. Despite not being good with scientific terms, he still could control whichever I.S given to him like it was just an extension of his own body that he was familiar with. That was an advantage of his high level 'Structure Analysis' and his unique 'Tracing'. With those two, Shirou could understand any object or weapon he touched, or saw, in cases of blades. And in term of fighting skill, he was confident that he wouldn't lose to any normal human.

"Are you trying to anger me again, Emiya?" Cecilia growled at him, clearly taken his word as another personal insult. "You should know that I was the only one who defeated an instructor in the entrance test. And you are saying that some newbie like you who can't even understand the terms, can win against me with only one day to prepare? Are you looking down on me that much?"

"No," Shirou quickly corrected her. He also stood up, his face got close to Cecilia's, and he looked straight into his foreign classmate's eyes. "I don't look down on you in anyway, Alcott-san."

"Eh?..." Surprised by his sudden action, Cecilia blushed hard and stepped back. She stared at Shirou for a long time before words managed to get out of her mouth. "That...That's good. A...As long as you know..."

Then she said quickly "Tomorrow then. We will duel after class, so don't run away," and immediately turned away to her seat, her cheeks were still deep red.

Sighed, Shirou sat back down and massaged his forehead. Troubles had shown itself on his very first day at school, the girls back in Fuyuki would definitely not like it when they heard about this.

* * *

The rest of the classes ended smoothly, with the exception of the last I.S class as Shirou was still sucks at understanding terms. But the problem seemed to be solved when Yamada gave him a list of terms and their meanings after class. She was surprisingly helpful, with no trace of the teenage girl earlier, to which Shirou was deeply grateful. After reading through the list once, and confirmed with the vice homeroom teacher again about the parts he wasn't sure about, it was time for Shirou to go to Chifuyu's apartment, where he was supposed to spend the night.

But to his surprise, Chifuyu herself walked into the classroom. He didn't expect her to still be here, school had ended a long time ago after all.

"I need to talk to you, Emiya-kun," Fuji-nee's childhood friend said. And Shirou once again wondered what trouble was coming for him this time.

* * *

Two months ago, Chifuyu Orimura had got a surprise when her childhood friend Fujimura Taiga suddenly contacted her to get permission for a boy named Shirou Emiya, who was under Taiga's care, to stay at her apartment while the boy studying here. Chifuyu agreed, she never said 'No' to Taiga's requests. And it wasn't like the boy would bother her anyway, since she rarely come back to her apartment, usually once every two or three months. Her job as an instructor at I.S academy had eaten away almost all of her time. And actually, having someone to look after the apartment while she was gone was a good thing, as she remember what Taiga said, and she herself had witnessed a few time when she visited her friend in Fuyuki: This Shirou boy was a genius when it came to house chores.

But things didn't go as planned. On the day of Shirou's arrival, Chifuyu received an even more shocking news. The boy she was supposed to take in had activated a freaking I.S, which could only be used by female.

At first she thought that was some kind of mistake, as there were no way for Shirou to be able to use an I.S. But after seeing his performance in the entrance test, Chifuyu had to admit that the boy indeed could pilot that damned armor, and he was doing it so well even.

Resigned to the fact that Shirou would be going to study in I.S academy, since it was the government's decision, all she could do now was called Taiga, and give her childhood friend her word that she would look after the boy while he was here.

_There go my housekeeper,_ she sighed. Since the academy was a boarding one, Shirou would be staying in the school's dorm.

Came back to present, today was Shirou's first day at school. And while Chifuyu was a bit happy that the boy seemed to recognize her, she couldn't help but wonder how someone as skilled in controlling I.S as him could have trouble understanding the related terms. As experienced as she was, once being an I.S representative candidate and a champion, Chifuyu could recognized right away that Shirou held back a lot in his entrance test. If he had been serious, then Cecilia Alcott wouldn't have been the only one who defeated an instructor. And needless to say, the boy would have gotten the top score instead of the British girl.

She was also glad that he seemed to be able to handle himself well enough while being surrounded by girls his age. The boy was surprisingly mature for a seventeen years old, which was a bit odd, but a good thing nevertheless.

At the first recess, Shirou continued to surprise Chifuyu even more. She was right outside of the classroom during the conversation between the boy and Cecilia, but decided not to interfere. She wanted to see how he would react in that situation.

Interesting enough, Shirou was able to set the British girl on edge. And Cecilia's duel challenge wasn't anything unexpected. But what Chifuyu couldn't understand was the reason that made the boy agreed to the fight. Did she misjudged him, and Shirou wasn't as mature as she thought? After all, what kind of idiot would go and fight his classmate on his first day of school anyway?

But in the end, Chifuyu decided that she would let the duel happen. Maybe she would get a chance to see Shirou's true strength. He was indeed an interesting boy.

She still had to have a talk with him first though, and after class was a good time as any. Yamada was extremely helpful helping Shirou with his troubles, Chifuyu was right to trust her vice homeroom teacher with that. And since they are finished, it was her turn. Opened the door, she walked in and saw Shirou preparing to leave.

"I need to talk to you, Emiya-kun," Chifuyu said as she approached him.

"Yes? Orimura-sensei, I thought you've gone home already?" Shirou asked, obviously surprised to see her.

"Well, I don't normally leave campus," she began. "And talking about home, I have something to inform you about. You see, you won't be staying at my apartment like we intended, instead you will move to the school dorm."

"What?" Shirou's eye opened wide. "How come?"

"It can't be helped," Chifuyu looked straight at him. "This is a boarding school, and we can't let student sleep outside of the campus to ensure their safety."

"I can understand that," said Shirou, but he still wasn't convinced. "But isn't this also an all-girl school? So the dorm must be all-girl too."

"Exactly," Chifuyu nodded. "But don't worry about that, a room had already been assigned for you to stay in. And all of your stuffs had been moved in too."

"Oh, fine," the boy sighed, looking clearly disappointed. "I guess it really can't be helped. So I will come to see my room now. What's the room number by the way?"

"1025," Chifuyu answered. "But hold on, there is something else I want to talk about too."

"What is it, Orimura-sensei?" Shirou once again stopped packing his stuffs, looked at his homeroom teacher.

"Your stupid duel," she said like scolding him. "Why did you agree to something childish like that?"

Now the boy in front of her completely dropped his school bag on his desk, before turned to look at her with a look of surprise with a little bit of disappointment. It made Chifuyu uncomfortable, Shirou was making her feel like she was wrong about something.

"Childish?" He shook his head slowly. "No it's not, Orimura-sensei. By the way, I noticed you were watching us from outside of classroom," Chifuyu frowned at that, she didn't used to being busted, but Shirou ignored that and continued. "But from your position, you might have missed what I saw. I saw determination in Alcott-san's eyes. You know all about her status and achievements, right?"

She nodded.

"I do, but what about it?"

"Well, I think with all of those things, she must be carrying a heavy burden all by herself. Her own pride as a representative cadet, together with the hope of her own country and family. That must be hard," Shirou looked thoughtful. And for a moment, Chifuyu glad that she was right, the boy really was mature for his age. But still...

"So you intended to solve that by beating her in the duel?" She asked, testing him.

"What? No, of course not," Shirou waved his hand frantically. And seeing that eased Chifuyu's mind.

"Beating her straight out in the duel can hurt her pride badly," the boy continued. "I'm still thinking of a way to solve this without hurting her feeling. Nothing came yet, but I will figure it out by tomorrow for sure."

"Why do you want to help Alcott so much then?" The question popped up in Chifuyu's head, and she decided to ask. "You like her or something?"

"No, I don't," Shirou panicked, his face blushed a bit. "Please stop joking, Orimura-sensei."

_So he can be like that too,_ thought Chifuyu, amused by the boy's reaction. "So what's the reason then?"

"Nothing specific. I just like helping people, that's all."

Chifuyu's eyes widened at Shirou's answer. But then she sighed, remembering about what Taiga said about the boy's dream. So it was natural for him to answer like that.

"Is there anything else, Orimura-sensei?" She looked up to see Shirou had picked his bag up again.

"Actually, there is one last thing," Chifuyu answered. "It's about your personal I.S."

"I have a personal I.S?" Shirou was obviously shocked hearing the news.

"Sure you do," Chifuyu gave him a nod. "You are the only male pilot after all."

"So where is it now?" Asked Shirou. She could now felt eagerness in his voice.

"It's still being adjusted and I think they are adding its weaponry at the moment. I can have it sent here by tomorrow afternoon so you can use it for your duel."

"Weaponry, huh?" The boy in front of her murmured, now he looked thoughtful again. "Orimura-sensei, can I ask you a favor?" Shirou said as he pulled out a pen and paper from his bag, then wrote something on it. "Can you tell them to add these in my I.S's armory? I don't need anything else, just these will do." Then he gave Chifuyu the paper.

Looked at what was given to her, Chifuyu couldn't help but being surprised. Those were...strange weapons to be used on an I.S.

"I see," finally she answered. "I will see what I can do. You can go back to your room now, Emiya-kun."

Shirou thanked her, and left the room. Chifuyu still stood in place and looked at where the boy had been standing in until just now, thinking about their conversation. Then she looked at the paper he gave her again.

"You really are a strange boy, Shirou Emiya," she concluded with a small grin.

* * *

_What a surprise, a personal I.S,_ thought Shirou while finding the way to his room. He had asked Chifuyu to add some weapons of his choice to his I.S's armory, and had seen the puzzled look on her face. It was natural though, since what he asked her to add were strange things to use on an I.S. But it couldn't be helped, they are his - a strange magus's - favorite weapons, they were bound to be unique.

And it seemed like Chifuyu was curious about Shirou. She had been observing him all day. Was she just interested in his status as the only male I.S pilot? Or there was something else? Either way, Shirou had decided to be more careful in showing off his skills. It would be a disaster if people found out his magus secret after all. While Shirou was afraid that if words got out, people would start questioning him, or even used him, he was more scared of the Mage Association. If they ever heard that he was the one who leaked the secret about magic, they would 'erase' him along with everybody involved for sure. And their Enforcers' strength were not something to be taken lightly.

Well nothing dangerous so far though, Shirou would be safe as long as he didn't start Tracing weapons in front of normal people.

* * *

"Well here it is, room 1025," finally found his room, Shirou opened the door and went in.

It was different from what he imagined of a school dorm. But since this academy was funded by the government to nurture its future defense, this was to be expected.

Shirou was looking at a fairly big double room, with 2 beds, one on each side. In a corner, there were two sets of school desks placed right next to each other. And at the end of the room - Shirou's heart jumped in joy when he saw that - was a kitchen, and by the look of it, it had every necessary things. There also were a round dinning table with four chairs around it as well.

_So despite having a cafeteria, the school still provided personal kitchen in each dorm room as well,_ he noted.

It wasn't like Shirou had any complain though. When he had to go to study in Tokyo, and then later lost the chance to stay at Chifuyu's apartment, Shirou had thought that he wouldn't be able to get into a kitchen as much as he used to until he graduated. So at the moment, having a kitchen that he could use whenever he want in front of him, Shirou was obviously overjoyed.

Being obsessed with the kitchen, it was normal for Shirou to miss the small bathroom on the right of it. He only knew of that room's existence when a voice came out from inside.

"Excuse me, are you my new roommate? I will come out right away," Shirou went pale when he heard the voice, which was clearly a girl's. And it sounded so damn familiar too...

Before he managed to react, the bathroom door swung open. And from inside came a Shinonono Houki wrapped only in a bath towel. Shirou froze, in front of him was a girl from his childhood. Well obviously she wasn't a child anymore.

Long black hair dropped straight instead of the usual ponytail, in contrast with her silky smooth white skin that the towel failed to cover properly, revealed the upper part of her chest and her long, beautiful legs. As a final bonus, the water drops and her lightly pink cheeks from the bath gave Houki a sexy look that took Shirou's breath away.

"Sorry for greeting you like this," Houki said, still had her back turned to him. "But I just came back from club acti...vi...ties..." Finally, she turned around, realized who was in the room with her, and slowly trailed off.

The awkward silence went on for minutes, before Shirou managed to recover from the shock. "Why...why are you here, Houki?"

That seemed to wake Houki up too. Blushed deeply, she growled. "Why? I want to ask you the same question too. This is my freaking room, you pervert."

"Actually, it's my..." Not letting Shirou finished his sentence, Houki swung a bokken that she took out from God-know-where down at him. Quickly side-stepped, he decided to make his escape first and let her had time to calm down.

Dodged another strike aimed for his head, Shirou made a roll on the floor before taking two other long steps and reached for the knob, turned it open, then threw himself out of the room, not forgetting to shut the door between him and his enraged supposed-to-be roommate.

"Really..." Shirou sighed as he walked away from the deadly room. "Who thought of the idea of letting a teenage boy and a teenage girl to be roommates anyway?" He massaged his forehead again, wondered how many more headaches he would get before the end of the day.

"I guess I will just go sight-seeing around campus until Houki calmed down," Shirou sighed once again.

* * *

I.S academy was a large facility, and it provided almost everything for its residents. Aside from the school building and the dorm, there were several more places. From the I.S related ones like the research building, or the I.S maintaining area, to some of the entertainment-purpose ones, like a game center, or a cinema. There were also a library, a park, and a multi-purpose gym. But what impressed Shirou the most was the fact that they managed to have an entire shopping mall inside the school campus.

All of those were to provide all of the students and instructors with their needs of course, so that they didn't have to go out of the school ground, thus endangering themselves. But just like other boarding schools, students were allowed to go outside of campus on weekends. They were all required to return before eight though, with the exceptions of the ones who came back to visit their home.

Since it was the first day of school, there were not many homework, so the students had something that could be called a free evening. And of course, they used this opportunity to go out and play.

When the situation looked all nice and good, it was actually another trouble for Shirou, who was dangerously famous. After refusing three different invitations to go to a restaurant, to watch a movie, and to have a stroll in the park from three groups of girls, he started to think that go sight-seeing at this time might not have been a good idea after all.

Shirou wanted to find somewhere less crowded. But since he was a newbie here, finding such place proved difficult. If only there was someone who can show him...

"Oh...What a surprise to see you here, Emiya-kun."

He turned around, and saw Yamada walking toward him. Her head poke out from the side of what seemed like a big pile of papers and books that she was carrying, which looked obviously too much for the petite woman. Her steps were unsteady from all the weight.

"Good evening, Yamada-sensei," Shirou said, then reached over and took most of the paper pile onto his arms. "Here, let me help you carry them."

Yamada looked like she wanted to stop him, but since her own arms were also busy, she couldn't do anything. "Th...Thank you, Emiya-kun." She said shyly after awhile.

"You are welcome, sensei," gave her a gentle smile, Shirou asked. "What are all these anyway?"

"They are test papers of the second year," Yamada looked up at him, she was now smiling too, and her face was still a bit red. "I'm helping their teacher bring these to the staff's lounge."

"Why didn't she do this herself?" Shirou said disapproving.

"Now now Emiya-kun," the vice homeroom teacher scolded him. "It wasn't like she made me do this. The homeroom teachers are very busy you know."

"Ah..." He blushed a little. "Yeah, maybe you are right. I'm sorry."

"It's quite alright," Yamada giggled a little. "Thank you for caring about me. That really made me happy. So tell me, how was your first day at school?"

Shirou frowned a little, remembering all of today's events.

"It was nice, I suppose. The lessons were good, even the I.S ones since I already got the list you gave me. It helps me a lot. Thank you, Yamada-sensei."

"You are welcome," Yamada smiled brightly. "It was my responsibility after all."

Shirou smiled back, she really was a good person. He wondered if she really could get into an I.S and battle another in the arena.

"Hey, Emiya-kun," she started talking again. "I heard about what happened back in your previous school, and I couldn't help but being bothered by it. Are you alright?" She asked, blinked at Shirou. "I mean, after going through something like that, it must be really hard for you."

Shirou's eye opened wide looking at his vice homeroom teacher. And what he saw in her eyes wasn't curiosity, she honestly cared about his feeling. That made Shirou felt warmer inside.

"I'm alright, Yamada-sensei. Thanks for caring about me," that was the truth, he really was okay about it. "Like I told Takashi-san earlier, I was unconscious, so I don't remember anything about that at all," well, this one was a lie. But since the fire that almost killed him in his childhood, Shirou became immune with seeing corpses and blood. So the scene at Fuyuki High didn't affect him at all.

"Really? I'm glad to hear that," she smiled at him again, then stopped walking. "Well here we are, I can take care of these from here, you should head back to the dorm, Emiya-kun."

"Are you sure, sensei?" Shirou asked. "I can help you to bring these all the way in."

"No, no. It's okay really," Yamada said with a smile, and Shirou returned the paper pile he was carrying to her. He worryingly watching the petite woman struggled to keep her balance.

"Are you sure..." Shirou said hesitatingly.

"Yes, Emiya-kun," she said with determination, and then turned back to him, smiled gently. "Thank you, and good luck with your duel tomorrow."

."Thank you, sensei. Good night," Shirou said as Yamada started walking into the teacher's lounge.

"Good night, Emiya-kun."

* * *

Shinonono Houki was extremely depressed at the moment. Now already changed to her nightgown and sitting on her bed, she blamed herself for the action earlier.

_I was such an idiot, attacking Shirou like that when we finally met again..._ Houki thought solemnly. Obviously it wasn't Shirou's fault, she was told earlier that there would be someone moving into her room later, but she wasn't bothered to check who it was.

Well, it wasn't like Houki could admit that, so it couldn't be helped.

_But his reactions were so good, he must be training as hard as I do,_ she noted, remembering Shirou's movement as he dodged her bokken.

Thinking that cheered her up a bit. When she was a kid, Houki often came and practiced kendo with Fujimura Taiga, who was Shirou's guardian, so it was natural for the two to meet. At first, she didn't talk much with the silent boy, but nevertheless admired his sword skill and hard work ( as a kid of course ). And the two of them became closer later on.

Even though she stopped coming to Taiga's dojo years later, Houki still kept on practicing kendo, and recently she finally won the world championship, of which she was very proud. And seeing her childhood friend's improvement made Houki happy, as kendo was the only connection left between her and the boy she admired.

_Now he's here, and we even share a room together..._ It's like a dream, such a simple thought was enough to make Houki's face flushed, and her heart beat faster.

And that thought led Houki to remember their reunion, and her already red face got even redder that steam almost came out of it. It was the first time a boy had got to see that much of her. While Houki was happy that Shirou was the one, she couldn't help but being embarrassed since she wasn't ready for it.

Houki also couldn't help but noticed the way Shirou looked - stared to be exact - at her when she was in that shameful appearance. That was too much for the innocent girl to bear, so she snapped and attacked him with her bokken, resulted in Shirou fleeing the room.

_I wonder what he thinks of my...my body,_ looked down at herself, Houki murmured shyly. She was, in fact, proud of her beautiful white skin and well-endowed body.

Then, the sudden knocks on the door made her jumped off the bed.

"I'm sorry for earlier, Houki. Are you in there?" Shirou's voice came in from the other side of the door.

"Wait...wait a moment," Houki panicked, and quickly trying to calm herself down. She couldn't let him saw her in that state. "I'm coming."

* * *

The door opened, and Shirou saw Houki, who was still a bit flushed, standing in front of him.

"Good evening," he began, it was a bit awkward, and he didn't know what to say to her. Well, at least the bokken was nowhere in sight.

"What are you standing there for?" As expected, Houki scolded him. "Hurry up and come in."

Shirou sighed in relief, looked like she managed to calm down after all. He walked into the room, and Houki quickly shut the door behind him.

"So..." Shirou said hesitatingly. "I guess we are roommates after all, huh? To be honest, I had no idea that I was going to be in the same room with you. When Orimura-sensei told me that there was a room prepared, I thought I would be living alone, since everyone else are all girls."

"So...so you didn't asked her to be in the same room with me?" There was a hint of disappointment in Houki's voice. That and her question made Shirou raised an eyebrow.

"No I didn't," he answered honestly. "I'm sorry if this makes you uncomfortable, living with a guy and all..."

"No it doesn't, you idiot!" Houki shouted, clearly irritated. Then she walked past a shocked Shirou to sit on her bed, looking angry.

"Why are you angry? He asked, obviously confused by his childhood friend's attitude.

"I'm not angry!" Said Houki as she turned her head away with a 'Hump'.

_What's wrong with her, I don't get this at all..._ Thought Shirou as he also went over and sit on his own bed. Girls really were impossible to understand, was it really that hard to say what was bothering you instead of holding it in like that?

Decided that it was a lost cause, Shirou tried to change topic.

"Actually," he said. "There is something that I've been wanting to ask you about, Houki."

"What...what is it?" She answered, still not looking at him.

"About my duel with Alcott-san tomorrow..." Shirou paused, wondering if she would really help him if he asked.

"About that," now Houki turned over and glared at him. "What kind of idiot would go and fight his classmate on his first day at school?"

"Ah...you are right, it was a bit rash of me," Shirou admitted quickly, and decided that he would just go ahead and ask. There was nothing to be afraid of anyway. "But what's done is done. And I've wanted to ask if you could help me get used to my I.S tomorrow after school, before the duel."

"Eh?" Houki looked like his request was completely unexpected. And then two small blushes started to form on her cheeks. "You...you want me to help you?"

"Yes, I do," Shirou said firmly. "It would be unfair if I asked Orimura-sensei or Yamada-sensei. And you are the only one I know here, so..."

"That's right," Houki nodded. Now she was smiling too. "You wanted me to help you. I'm busy, but since you asked, I guess I can help you out."

"Really? Thank you very much, Houki," her answer confused Shirou a bit, but it didn't really matter. She agreed to help, right?

"You are welcome," Houki, now humming happily, stood up and told him. "I think we should get to bed now, we have school tomorrow too."

"You are right," Shirou answered. "You go on ahead and sleep, I'm going to have a shower first."

And as he stood at the bathroom door, Shirou remembered something. He turned around, looked at Houki, and smiled. "By the way, I forgot to tell you this earlier. But congrats on winning the championship, I heard about it from Fuji-nee."

And then he turned away, not knowing that behind him, Houki's face had once again turned deep red.

**End of Chapter 1.**


	2. Chapter 2: The First Duel

**Author's note:**

**Chapter 2 is finally out. Sorry for the long update, I will try to improve this in the future.**

**Thank you all for the reviews, I really appreciate them. And some of them certainly gave me ideas to think about. (i.e. I'm now considering the idea of bringing Ichika into the story, among other things.)**

**And as many reviewers have suggested, I have found a beta. Please say hello to T. Alana M**** ( u/4449571/). ****She's really helped me out a lot, and I'm very grateful.**

**Also I'm sorry for anything that seemed to be disturbingly out of canon of both universe, especially I.S. I hope my readers can help me to point them out.**

**That's all for now, please enjoy the chapter.**

_**Beta by T. Alana M.**_

* * *

The next morning, Shirou woke up feeling tired. He hadn't gotten enough rest the night before.

Well, how could he, when there was a girl his age sleeping in the opposite bed, the distance of which he could easily close in one step? Also, the scene of her stepping out of the bathroom from yesterday was still haunting Shirou's mind. Despite showing no reaction over it, he was still just a normal 17 year-old-boy. That was to say, a hormonal one.

Shaking his head, Shirou got out of bed and headed for the bathroom. He would just go wash his face and let the cold water wash away whatever dirty thoughts he was having at the moment.

When he was finished, he went back into the main room, to discover that Houki was still asleep. Shirou walked silently in order to make sure that he didn't wake her up, and reached for his bag. There had been too many things that had happened yesterday, so he hadn't gotten a chance to unpack his stuff yet. Right now, he was searching for his track suit in a fully-packed clothes bag. To make the matters worse, the suit he needed was buried all the way at the bottom of the pile.

It took him almost ten minutes to dig it out without taking out the entire bag's contents. After changing, Shirou got out of his room for his morning workout routine.

* * *

_Maybe I should consider joining the kendo club, _thought Shirou as he left the dorm. While he wasn't interested in any competitions whatsoever, it was still good to be able to practice with other people. He could manage alone with archery, but having a real opponent in kendo was definitely better.

_But I could always ask Houki to be my sparring partner, as long as she isn't too busy to help out. And she would make a wonderful opponent too,_ Shirou thought as he started jogging to the park. The cool and refreshing morning air had woken him up completely.

While thinking about his own practices, Shirou remembered another big problem. He was now living in the school's dorm, not at his house in Fuyuki anymore. That meant there was no way for him to practice his magecraft in secret. Before, he could just sneak out to his familiar shed. But now, Shirou really needed to set up a workshop somewhere. That was a problem that had to be solved soon.

Finally reaching the park, Shirou started working out. His routine usually consisted of push-ups, sit-ups and squats to train his body muscles. Now with a big ground like the I.S academy's, he could add jogging into that list.

Breathed in the fresh morning air, Shirou thought about his duel with Cecilia later today. _Was that a bit rash of me?_ He wondered. _I still don't know much about Alcott-san. So it's really hard to find a way to help her._

Of course, he had no intention of backing out now. Still, while Shirou was confident in his skill, and he could beat her in a battle for sure, the problem here lied in the fact that he wanted to help Cecilia with her burdens. And obviously enough, beating her straight out wasn't a preferable solution.

_I guess now, it all depends on what I asked of Orimura-san yesterday,_ thought Shirou while on his fiftieth push-up. Actually, he had already had something else in mind. Something that he only thought of after hearing about his personal I.S, and how its armory was still in the middle of adjustment. There was a little special feature that he asked his homeroom teacher to add into the suit. And if it could be added successfully, then Shirou might have a chance to help Cecilia out without beating her. But of course, since he was uncertain whether Chifuyu could pull it off for him or not, Shirou started to regret setting the duel day too soon.

After he was done with the workout, Shirou started walking back to the dorm, cooling his body on the way. The sky was brighter than before, but it was still pretty early, only six at most, so there was nobody out at the moment.

Or at least, that's what he _thought._

"Is that Orimura-san over there?" Shirou murmured as he saw a familiar figure ahead of him. It turned out that he was right. That was definitely Chifuyu in her own track suit. The female instructor was obviously working out herself.

"Good morning, Orimura-sensei." Shirou greeted her as he approached her from behind.

"Well, good morning, Emiya-kun." Chifuyu replied in a completely indifferent voice, which disappointed Shirou a bit since he was hoping to surprise her.

"It's nice to see you here." Shirou said. And now he started jogging again, alongside Chifuyu. "Do you work out like this every morning?"

"Of course. Even though I'm an instructor, I'm also an I.S pilot. I have to keep my body fit." She answered, and then turned over and looked at him. "I didn't expect to see you this early."

"Ah, it's a habit of mine since the time I was still in Fuyuki." He told her. "And I think there's no need to change that just because I don't live there anymore."

"That's true." Chifuyu said. They both stopped at the park's entrance. "By the way, I have news regarding your I.S."

"Really? What about—?" Shirou quickly looked at her, his face serious.

"It's done. I was able to convince them to add those things on the paper you gave me." The homeroom teacher interrupted before he could finish his question. "That feature you asked...it wasn't easy, since it affects the energy shield, thus potentially endangers the pilot. But in the end, I managed to have them implanted it. What are you planning to do with such function anyway?"

"Well, since you've asked; I could say that it's the solution for Alcott-san's problem," Shirou replied. Now he had a satisfied grin on his face. With the special function in place, all that needed to pull his plan off now was his own effort, and a bit of acting skill.

And lastly, there was something else that he wanted to test out too. But he preferred to conduct that test before the duel, as it was only out of his own curiosity, and had nothing to do with Cecilia at all.

"And it doesn't seem like you would tell me about it, right?" asked Chifuyu mockingly; no doubt she had already noticed his expression.

"No." Shirou said instantly, still grinning. "It's better if you wait and see for yourself, sensei."

"I see," she nodded. "I guess I'll go back first then. You'd better head back too, I won't like it if you are late for school on your second day. Later, Emiya-kun."

"See you later, Orimura-sensei."

Shirou started to walk back as well. He really needed a bath since his clothes were now drenched with sweat.

* * *

When Shirou returned to his room, Houki still hadn't woken up yet. So he silently went to the bathroom to wash himself again. But after he was done, Shirou noticed that he forgot to bring in his shirt.

Since there was no other way, Shirou cursed himself for being careless, then wrapped a towel around his shoulders and went for the clothes bag in the main room to grab a shirt. Unfortunately, as he was coming back to the bathroom to put it on, his towel got stuck in his bed's corner, slipped out of his hold and fell to the ground

Quickly used the shirt to cover his body, Shirou frantically looked over Houki's bed. Luckily, she was still asleep. He sighed in relief, then once again returned to the bathroom and finished dressing. It wouldn't be very nice if Houki suddenly woke up and see him topless. Well, Shirou didn't really mind his body being seen, but what he wanted to hide from his childhood friend was the big scar on his chest, and a matching one on his back.

Those were the marks of his first wound in the fifth Grail War, given to him by Servant Lancer. He grimaced at the memory, and decided to occupy himself with something else.

* * *

Now that Shirou was all clean, it was time for his favorite activity - cooking. He walked over to the kitchen and started making breakfast.

As expected of Houki, almost everything in her fridge were traditional Japanese ingredients. And since they were enough for two people, Shirou planned to cook for her as well. While he enjoyed cooking, seeing other people eating the food he made also pleased him greatly..

When Shirou was still in Fuyuki, Fuji-nee, Sakura, Rin, Illya and Saber usually gathered at his house at meal times. Well, during the Grail War, Rin, Saber and Illya basically boarded at Emiya Residence, while Sakura and Fuji-nee came by occasionally. But after the War ended, Rin returned to her own house. And since Saber became her Servant instead of Shirou's due to some situations that led the legendary King Arthur to be stabbed by the Noble Phantasm of Caster, thus severed the contract between her and Shirou, she followed her new Master as well. And recently, they left for London before his departure to Tokyo, since Rin had got an invitation to study at the Clock Tower.

"Damn it." Shirou grimaced, remembering the events led to the separation of him and his former Servant. While Saber still considered him as her second Master, and would risk herself to protect him (not that he would let her), it was still a painful experience. Since the bond between Master and Servant was stronger than any friendship or any marriage, losing it wasn't something Shirou could forget anytime soon.

He shook his head and thought about the others. Fuji-nee and Sakura were still like before, visiting his house from time to time, and Illya still stayed there with him. Until three days ago, when Shirou left for Tokyo (he came here one day earlier in advance, and stayed at Chifuyu's apartment that night), the girl also returned to her family's mansion in the forest outskirt of Fuyuki city.

Shirou found himself feeling sorry for Illya. And he felt somewhat guilty about leaving the little girl behind. After all that time, with many friends around, now she had to be all alone again.

Of course, Shirou knew that there were two homunculi living in the Einzbern - Illya family's - mansion as well. But they were her servants, who viewed Illya as their master, not as a friend. It was obvious that their company couldn't be compared to the warm and friendly atmosphere of his house.

_How ironic, the happiest and warmest time of Emiya Residence was in the middle of a brutal War._ Letting his thoughts wander, Shirou finally finished cooking breakfast, and now moved on to set the table.

Hearing a noise behind him, Shirou turned back and saw that Houki, who had just woken up, was now getting out of her bed.

"Good morning, Houki. Did you sleep well?" He greeted her with a smile.

"Ye...yes!?" His childhood friend jumped and blushed hard. What was wrong with her?

"Are you alright? Your face is so red," asked Shirou worriedly as he quickly walked toward Houki. It wouldn't be good if she got sick.

"I'm...I'm alright, I just need to go wash my face first."

Quickly standing up, Houki literally ran past him and started making her way to the bathroom, before noticing all the food on the table.

"Did you make all this?" She stopped, clearly astonished.

"Yes, cooking is a hobby of mine," Shirou smiled brightly. "I made enough for you as well, would you like to have breakfast here with me instead of going down to the cafeteria?" He asked, which made Houki's face blushed even more.

"Yes. I...I'd love to. Just wait for me a bit." Giving him a quick nod, Houki went into the bathroom and shut the door behind her.

* * *

Shinonono Houki was confused. She didn't know what to think about Shirou, the boy she once admired, who was now on the other side of the door. She had used the bathroom as an excuse to get away from him and now tried to calm herself down.

Houki was definitely surprised when she saw the high quality breakfast that Shirou made. She hadn't known he could cook that well. Was he like that from the time they were kids, but she just didn't know about it, or was it the skill he developed after she moved away? Only now Houki finally realized that she didn't really know much about Shirou, besides how he was in the past. And the one she admired was the seven-year-old Shirou, not the teenage boy who was currently her roommate.

But that only confused her more. She didn't know if it was love or not, but she definitely had some feelings for Shirou. She cared for him and was conscious of him. She also blushed easily around him too.

_And he even made breakfast for me_. The thought made she blushed even harder, despite her effort of trying calm down. Looking at her own flushed face in the mirror, Houki decided that she would try to get to know the current Shirou better And hopefully one day, she could know exactly what the feeling she had for him was

But after that, she remembered something else, something more serious. The truth was, Houki hadn't slept well last night. She couldn't get comfortable being in the same room with Shirou, and only fell asleep somewhere around two in the morning. After that she was woken up by the sound of Shirou getting out of his after practice bath. Houki was about to get up and greet him. But seeing the boy topless, having only a towel to cover his well-built upper body made her reconsidered that decision. Instead, she kept lying in her bed, pretended to be sleeping, and watched him from under her eyelids as her face kept getting hotter and hotter.

For awhile, the way Shirou kept his towel on annoyed her a lot. But when he accidentally dropped it, what Houki saw had shocked her greatly.

On the boy's chest, right over the position of his heart, was a ugly red scar of what looked like a big wound. And Houki also saw another one that was exactly the same when Shirou turned his back to her. Whatever did that to him, it must've pierced his heart all the way to the back. And that made Houki's own heart tighten. She shut her eyes tightly, couldn't stand seeing Shirou getting hurt like that, even if it was something that was already in the past.

What had happened to him? What could have caused a wound like that? And if it went through his heart, how was he still alive?

There were too many unanswered questions going on rampage in her mind right now. Well, obviously, Shirou wanted to hide it from Houki, seeing his actions, so she couldn't just come out and ask him about it. Besides, doing that was just like she admitted peeping on him. At the very least, Houki's pride didn't allow her to bust herself like that.

Being too shocked and embarrassed, she couldn't bring herself to get up right away. So Houki waited until Shirou finished making breakfast, then tried to make it looked like she just woke up. But that didn't go very well. Once again getting flushed by seeing his face, Houki quickly made an excuse and retreated into the bathroom.

Then suddenly, just like last night, a knock on the door and Shirou's voice made her jump.

"Houki, you've been in there for quite a while now. Are you sure you are okay?"

She could hear the worry in his voice, and that cheered her up a bit from all the thoughts about the boy she admired getting hurt. But still, Houki determined that she would somehow find out just how did Shirou got those scars.

"I'm fine," she answered. "I will be out right away."

Breathing deeply, she calmed down and stepped out of the bathroom. Now it was time to see if Shirou's food was as good as it looked.

* * *

Shirou was now sitting in his first class of the second day, thinking about what happened that morning.

The first part of it was actually quite nice. He had breakfast with Houki after she got out of the bathroom, and was greatly delighted by the fact that she absolutely loved the food he made. Well, not that Houki herself really told him 'I love it' or anything. The truth was she only complimented him vaguely, but Shirou had enough experience in watching people enjoy his food to figure out what his childhood friend really felt.

After that, Houki cleaned the dishes (she insisted on it since Shirou was the one who cooked) and they went to class. It was when they left their room that the disaster happened.

"Eh? Emiya-kun? Is that your room?" A short brunette girl asked in surprise as she saw Shirou walking out of his room. "And even Shinonono-san is there too?" She added when Houki followed him out.

Needless to say, the girl's voice was like a signal, and several more doors on that floor swung open. From those rooms, at least thirty other girls in various states of undress came out, looking for the couple in question. Some of them even only had a shirt and panties on.

"Is that true? Emiya-kun is here?"

"There he is, he and Shinonono-san just came out of that room together."

"Are you two dating, Shinonono-san? Staying together like that..."

"Wow, I had no idea Shinonono-san could be that bold."

...

Those were just some examples of what the excited bunch of girls said, or shouted, or cried out. The important thing was that while most of those were directed at Houki, the source of them all that was still Shirou and their supposed relationship. Seeing how famous Shirou was, that little scene would no doubt become the beginning of a scandal.

Shirou sighed, adjusting his seat. Well, the end of that story wasn't anything unexpected. Houki, who was already blushed so hard that he could almost see steam coming out of her face, lost her temper and shouted at everyone that Shirou and her weren't like that, and they were just forced to become roommates. The girl then quickly fled from the scene, leaving Shirou behind with a crowd of shocked girls, who soon recovered their senses and started bombarding him with their questions. Shirou barely managed to escape the dorm unscathed.

While what Houki had said was true, her strong refusal actually hurt him a bit. And even now, whenever he looked over at her seat and met her eyes, she just turned her head away with a silent 'hmph'.

Really_, girls._ Shirou just couldn't understand them. Well, with a few exceptions anyway, but Saber, Rin and Illya couldn't really be called normal girls, could they? Beside, those three had fought alongside (or against) Shirou in a War of life and death. So it was only natural for him to understand them as much as they understand him as their lives had once depended on each other.

_I wonder what they are doing..._Deep in thought, Shirou didn't realize that a familiar figure had approached him, with a thick school book on her hand.

"Well, well, Emiya-kun," Chifuyu's voice dragged him all the way back to reality. "While I'm happy that you weren't late, do you think you could just let your mind wander around in my class?"

Looking up, Shirou paled. He could feel cold sweats started to form on his forehead. Standing in front of him was an angry-looking, book-holding Chifuyu, who was now looking down at him with a threatening expression.

"Ah...Umm...Orimura-sensei..." Shirou stuttered. "Eh...I'm sorry?"

"PA!". The thick AND heavy school book finally made its way down onto the top of his head, and Shirou saw stars. That was the first time he ever saw how scary Chifuyu could be.

* * *

"So this is it? My personal I.S?" Asked Shirou as he, Houki and Chifuyu stood in one of the I.S maintaining rooms. After school ended, Chifuyu told him to come with her to see his personal I.S and prepare for the duel with Cecilia. Shirou had asked her to let Houki come with them as well, since his childhood friend had agreed to help him getting used to the suit.

"Its name is 'Warlord'. A third generation I.S." Chifuyu nodded. "So, what do you think?"

"A third-gen huh?" Shirou mumbled. The armor in front of him had a pretty unique color scheme, black with a white pattern for left arm, and the complete opposite for right arm, while its lower part was pure white. As a matter of fact, Shirou instantly recognized the resemblance with his favorite weapons, Kanshou and Bakuya. Those twin swords were the first two items in the list he gave Chifuyu yesterday. No doubt the homeroom teacher had spent her time researching about them, and designed the color for Shirou's I.S. And to be honest, it looked quite good, so he didn't have any complaints.

"So, can I try it on now?" Shirou turned to Chifuyu. When she nodded, he came forward, climbed into the armor, and started using 'Structure Analysis' on it, gathering its information and specs. As his od reached the I.S's core, it started to activate.

"How...how do you feel, Shirou?" Asked Houki in a worried voice. It seemed that the current situation had made her forget that she was mad at him. But again, had she really been angry earlier?

"I'm fine," replied Shirou, giving her a reassuring smile. "I can control this, no problem."

In fact, he was feeling even better than normal, as one of the I.S's features was to increase the pilot's bodily functions and keep him in a stable state. Right now, everything from his heart rate to his pulse and lung capacity were all increased. His brain was releasing much more endorphins than it normally did. While other people might find it's scary for their body to be manipulated like that, it was a normal occurrence for Shirou to have his body strengthened through his 'Reinforcement' spell. Therefore, he could get used to the feeling quickly.

Before, at the day of the entrance test, Shirou had already piloted an I.S. But since it had been a training model, its specs were nowhere near the level of the 'Warlord'. And he could feel this machine clearly, as his senses were being linked with it. Shirou could now hear better, his vision clearer and expanded. If he went even further and enhanced his body with magecraft as well, then Cecilia would be no match for him at all. But since that wasn't the purpose of today's match, Shirou restrained himself, and made a mental note to try out his full capacity later, preferring when there was no audience around as he didn't want to reveal his true strength unless there was an emergency. But that would be very difficult as all of the I.S deployments within the academy were under surveillance.

"Houki." Shirou called out for his childhood friend. "Can you please get in a training suit so I can check out my I.S's sensor? And we could have a light spar, if possible."

Houki nodded, her face was now serious. Then she went over and deployed a training I.S - the Uchigane, a highly rated second generation suit. When it was activated, a signal instantly appeared on Shirou's high spec sensor: 'Sensing a standby I.S, piloted by Shinonono Houki. I.S's Codename: Uchigane, defensive model.'

"How're things over there?" Houki asked.

"All good," answered Shirou. "The sensors are working perfectly, and there're no other problems either. Seeing as there's still another hour until my match, do you want to spar with me for awhile?"

"Sure," Houki nodded, now smiling a little. "Can we borrow the arena for awhile, Orimura-sensei?" She turned and asked Chifuyu, who had been observing them from the start.

"I don't see why not," said the homeroom teacher. "But only for fifteen minutes, got it? It wouldn't be good if Shirou got himself exhausted before the real match. And we have to prepare the field too."

"Thank you very much, sensei," Shirou and Houki said in unison. He could see the girl blushing a little from that small incident.

* * *

Houki was deeply amazed. She had already seen Shirou's reactions against her attacks yesterday, but _this _was on an entirely different level.

The boy was using two swords at once, but his style was nothing like the Japanese two-sword-style that she knew about, where the user held one sword in front of him and the other above his head. Instead, Shirou was holding two short swords with broad blades (which was already odd compared to the traditional combination of one katana and one wakizashi), and he stood straight with both arms dropped at his sides.

_It's too strange,_ thought Houki._ He's full of openings, and yet I can't hit him at all._

She was getting irritated. Each of her strikes was either parried or blocked by Shirou. Then he instantly used his other sword to return the attack. Of course, they didn't hit as Houki was able to avoid them all. But since this was only a light spar, she doubted that the boy in front of her was going with his full strength.

Well, neither was she. But for an international kendo champion like Houki to keep missing the target, even in a spar, was an unbelievable thing. And a part of her admiration for the seven-year-old Shirou was now surfacing again.

_Seriously_, she wondered. It had only been ten minutes, but Houki was already panting. Obviously, sparring while piloting an I.S wasn't something she used to._ Where did he learn that style? I've never seen anything like that before._

After they finished sparring, Houki decided to add that question to her growing list of 'Things about Shirou that she will find out no matter what.'.

* * *

Chifuyu had been observing her students' spar from the start, and she was having some mixed feelings at the moment. Obviously, for her, this is a chance to see Shirou's skill. And through watching the two of them fight, she could easily guess that the boy still wasn't giving it his all.

From the start, the first thing that caught Chifuyu's attention was Shirou's unfamiliar stance. It was really odd, full of openings. For a moment she had wondered if he even wanted to fight or not.

But as the sparring session went on, irritation started to get to her. While Chifuyu was clearly impressed by the boy's skill, she was also gradually figuring things out about his strange style. In her eyes, that was a suicidal way of fighting. Purposely left himself open to invite his opponent's attacks. Since Shirou was the one who created those openings, he would know for sure where the other would strike. All that left for him to do was block or parry the attack with one of his swords, and then used the other for a counter.

It might sound simple in theory. But in reality, for someone to be able to use it as effectively as Shirou was doing required a huge amount of practice. But even as skilled as he was, in a real fight, if he timed his opponent's attack wrong, even for just a little bit, then the boy would pay for that mistake with his life.

_No wonder he asked me to add those two swords as his I.S's main weapon._ Thought Chifuyu with a scowl on her face. _If he wanted to use traditional two-sword-style, then he would've asked for something thinner and longer. Just where did he learn to fight like that?_

Chifuyu could be sure that Taiga would never teach Shirou that suicidal style. Or would she? But she had never seen her friend using something like that. Actually, Chifuyu had never seen anyone use that style, ever.

_So does that mean he created that style himself?_ She looked down, deep in thoughts._ But why would he need to do that? And why with those two swords?_

Of course, right after receiving the paper from Shirou, Chifuyu had spent that entire night researching about the pair of swords that was mentioned. And the only matches were Kanshou and Bakuya, the twin blades crafted by a couple of Chinese blacksmiths. The document also said, according to the legends, that due to the love and the sacrifices of their makers in the forging progress, the two swords were granted a special ability to be able to find each other. Basically, if their user held one of them in his hand, and threw the other, then the thrown sword would come back to him like a boomerang. It was also stated that even if lost, Kanshou and Bakuya could always find their way back to the owner.

Not that Chifuyu believed in all that nonsense. There was no way for two mere swords to be able to do something like that. But then why did Shirou specifically choose them? It surely wasn't because of his style's requirement, as two mundane swords with the same shape and size would do just as well.

Feeling an oncoming headache, she decided to leave that problem for later. After all, while had the same design, the pair of swords Shirou was using now of course couldn't be the real Kanshou and Bakuya, as they were made by the scientists in charge of the 'Warlord'. And the size was definitely different too-since normal swords were too small to be held by an I.S, they had had to enlarge the whole thing.

Chifuyu turned back to her students only to see that they had already finished their spar. Sighing and blaming herself for losing focus, thus losing the chance to observe Shirou more, she signaled them to get out of their I.S and rest. Well, it wasn't a complete loss, since the boy still had a duel to fight later. And this time, Chifuyu would watch him very closely.

_Just like I thought. You really, really are an interesting boy, Shirou Emiya_. She grinned.

* * *

Shirou was satisfied. He was now all warmed up after the spar with Houki, and the test he secretly carried out was a complete succeed as well.

During the last five minutes of the spar, Shirou had disconnected his I.S from its energy tank. Then he tried to pour his own od into the core to keep the suit running. It worked just as he expected, the 'Warlord' was still running as long as he kept feeding it energy. But since Shirou himself didn't know how much od it would take for the I.S to be fully operational, he decided to play it safe, and turned off his energy shield to save power. Luckily it had been an unofficial spar, so there hadn't been anyone who monitored it to know if their shields were up or not.

Shirou knew that was a bit stupid on his part. With the energy shield down like that, just a mistake would have caused him his life, since getting hit directly by an I.S's weapon wasn't a joke. But Shirou had already faced even more dangerous situations, and had been gravely injured no less than three times. So facing naked weapons with no protection didn't have any mental effect on him. Plus the fact that Shirou was confident with his skill, and he knew that he couldn't get hit by Houki when she wasn't being serious.

Now that Shirou knew the I.S could work on his od instead of its own energy, he could try to find other chances to carry out more experiments. He wanted to know the od requirements to be able to use all of the suit's functions, and how long he could keep it up before overloading his own Magic Circuits. Of course, there were other factions to be kept in mind as well, but knowing his every limit first would help speed things up without harming himself in the process.

After the spar, Shirou and Houki landed back into the maintenance room. He then dismissed his I.S, which turned into a necklace with a crossed miniature Kanshou and Bakuya pendant.

Now, all he had to do was rest and wait until his duel with Cecilia. But during break, Houki and Chifuyu had approached him. His childhood friend was wearing a curious look, while the expression on Chifuyu's face was clearly irritation.

"Shirou! / Emiya-kun!" They demanded in unison.

"Yes?" He answered, already having an idea of what the two in front of him wanted to ask about. "How may I help you?"

"Where did you learn that style? / Who taught you to fight like that?" Together again. Were their minds synchronized or something? Shirou found the scene before him to be quite amusing.

And their questions were just what he had expected. Shirou knew that using that unique style would surely draw attention from the others, but it wasn't anything he couldn't cover up. Besides, it couldn't be helped. While it wasn't the only way for Shirou to fight, it was his favorite and the one he trained the most in. Sooner or later, people would see him use it, with or without his consent.

"I learned it from a friend's friend back in Fuyuki, and have been practicing it for almost a year now," answered Shirou. It might be simpler saying that learned it from a friend, but he had no intention of considering that freak Archer to be his friend, ever. And saying that Shirou learned that style from him wasn't entirely true either. While it was originally Archer's style, the white haired Servant didn't teach him anything. Shirou himself grabbed the basics by seeing the style in action- -often while Archer was trying to _kill him_. Then he practiced and sharpened it together with Saber, making it his own.

Hearing his answer, Houki's eyes widened in awe, and she blushed a little. For a moment, Shirou had thought she looked rather cute like that, before noticing Chifuyu's stare on him. The homeroom teacher looked even more uncomfortable than before.

"Friend?" She scowled. "What kind of friend would teach you something suicidal like that?"

"How is it suicidal, sensei?" Houki asked, surprised by Chifuyu's words.

"You didn't notice?" The older woman turned her glare on Houki, making the girl unconsciously back away.

"How did you even become an international champion anyway?" Chifuyu sighed. "Your roommate here purposely let himself open to invite you to strike where he wanted. Got it now?"

Houki's jaw dropped. Now finally realized just what Shirou's strange style was all about, her face started to flush again. But this time, it was anger.

"Shirou!" She turned to him. "How could you do something as stupid as that. If I had hit you then...then..."

"Don't worry Houki." Shirou looked straight into his childhood friend's eyes, trying to reassure her. "If you had hit me, I wouldn't even be scratched. I still have the I.S's shield, remember?" Well, that was a lie, but Houki didn't need to know that.

Meeting Shirou's look straight on, the girl's face went even redder. Then she shyly turned her gaze away. "That...that's not the point..."

"Right! That's not the point." Chifuyu jumped in. Now she and Houki had switched from saying things in unison to playing tag team. "If you use that style in a real fight, just one small mistake will get you killed," she scolded. "And what kind of people are you being friends with, Emiya Shirou? To teach you something like that..."

"Please, Orimura-sensei." Shirou cut her off. And the hatred showed on his face made Chifuyu raise an eyebrow, and Houki shift herself uncomfortably.

"I said 'a friend's friend', didn't I?" He asked, his voice had turned cold. "That guy wasn't, isn't, and never will be my friend. So please stop assuming things."

Silence. Chifuyu and Houki were shocked by the emotion Shirou had just displayed.

Finally, after staring at him uncomfortably for awhile, the homeroom teacher nodded. "I see, I will let you rest now. We teachers have to prepare the field for your duel."

Then she left the room. But as Chifuyu opened the door, she stopped, turned back to Shirou and said, "Do your best, Emiya-kun. Good luck."

"I will. Thank you, Orimura-sensei." Shirou answered, trying to calm himself down as his homeroom teacher left and closed the door behind her.

That left him and Houki alone together.

Looking at Shirou in surprise, his childhood friend sat down next to him.

"You must really hate that guy, huh?" She asked.

"Yeah," Shirou nodded. "I'm sorry for expressing such hatred in front of you. I shouldn't have done that."

"It's okay, Shirou," Houki gently reassured him. Then she looked down and murmured. "We all have someone we hate, after all."

Shirou glanced at her, but didn't say anything. Whoever she was thinking about, it was obvious that that person didn't leave Houki with happy memories. He didn't want to be the one who reopened old wounds by asking.

The awkward silence between them went on for a while, before Houki decided to break it.

"Say, Shirou," she started, blushing a little. "Why did you accept the fight with Cecilia-san? I mean, there was no need to accept that challenge, right? And you certainly don't look like someone who would go around fighting for no reason."

"You know, Orimura-san asked me the same thing too," said Shirou with a small chuckle. "Actually, I accepted that duel to help Alcott-san."

"Help her?" Houki was clearly puzzled. "With what?"

"With her burdens," Shirou answered solemnly. "I'm not saying that I understand it fully. But I know that being a representative cadet isn't an easy thing—especially with the hopes of an entire nation resting on her shoulders. It would be good for Alcott-san if she could relax a bit."

"But why?" Houki asked. "Don't tell me you like her or something..." And Shirou could hear a trace of sadness in her voice.

"No of course not," he quickly said, and he could see her face lit up a little. This was definitely deja-vu, as Shirou remembered being in this situation yesterday as well, with those exact same questions. However, he managed not to blush this time. "I just want to help people. That's my dream."

"Your dream?" Houki repeated his words with a surprised expression on her face.

"Yeah," Shirou nodded. "My dream is to become a hero to save people. Sounds childish, doesn't it?"

"No, of course not," Houki assured him. "It's a wonderful dream, Shirou."

"Thank you," he smiled at her. "How about you, Houki? What's your dream?"

Now that Shirou thoughts about it, he realized that he still didn't know much about his roommate. This was a chance for him to get to know her better.

"Eh..." To his surprise, Houki looked down again and started stuttering. Her face flushed a little. "To be honest, I don't have one at the moment..."

That made Shirou rose an eyebrow. It certainly wasn't what he expected. From what he knew and had seen of her. Shirou was sure that Houki would have one or two dreams herself.

"Actually, I had a dream once," she suddenly lifted her head and looked at him. "You remember the kendo .championship?"

"Ah, you won that one, right?" Now Shirou remembered, he'd even congratulated her about it last night. "That was your dream? To become an international kendo champion?"

Still blushing, Houki nodded. Now she was smiling a little, no doubt remembering about the moment she finally made her dream comes true.

"Then I have to congratulate you for that too," said Shirou. He was genuinely happy for his childhood friend. Having your dream fulfilled was indeed something to be happy about. "It may be a bit late, but do you want to have a celebratory party later?"

"Eh?" Houki's eyes widened, then her face reddened. Obviously she hadn't expected his proposition. "That...that's not necessary..."

"It is," said Shirou, smiling. He was now thinking about all of the cooking he would get to do later. Well, that and Houki's celebration too. "I haven't gotten a chance to congratulate you properly yet."

"If...If you put it like that..." Stuttered Houki. Her face was now as red as a tomato. "I guess we can do it. It can be your celebration too. If you win today, that is."

Obviously, since the boy didn't plan to win the duel, she would be a bit disappointed. But it couldn't be helped. Shirou agreed to all this just to help Cecilia, not to win. And the party was his celebration for Houki, not for himself. But now wasn't the time to tell Houki that.

"Sure." Despite keeping on a cool face, Shirou was now making a victory pose on the inside. "So is tomorrow alright? We will have to go shopping for the ingredients too, and it would be too late after my duel today."

"Go shopping?...Together?" The girl in front of him looked like she was going to faint from embarrassment any time now.

"Yes." He nodded. "It would be nice if you come with me. But if you're busy..."

"No, I'm not," replied Houki, quickly shaking her head. "I...I will go with you."

"It's decided then," smiling once again, Shirou was now very excited. It wasn't every day that he was able to cook a celebration party after all. "I will wait for you tomorrow after school."

Blushing deeply, Houki nodded her head, and about to said something as well. But before the words left her mouth, a voice interrupted.

"It's time for your duel, Emiya-kun," said Yamada as she peeked through the maintaining room's door. But she stopped, and looked at the two students. Especially Houki, whose face was now flushing. "Ehh... I'm sorry. Did I interrupt something?"

"No, it's nothing, sensei." Both of then quickly defended themselves. Then Shirou realized that he was also blushing a little, but quickly regained his composure.

_Finally, it's here_. He stood up, setting the thoughts about cooking and shopping with Houki aside. Now it was time for his first I.S battle. And even if he had already planned to lose this one, Shirou would still take it seriously until the end.

"I'm going, Houki," he said in a serious tone, turned back to his childhood friend.

Houki had stopped blushing as well. And she looked at him straight in his eyes without any of her earlier shyness.

"Good luck, Shirou." The girl said in a small, but firm voice that Shirou had never heard her uses before. He didn't know why, but hearing that from Houki definitely made him feel more confident.

Nodding to his childhood friend one last time, he followed Yamada out of the room to prepare for his duel with their blond classmate.

* * *

Shirou was now standing in the preparation room on the side of the arena, which would be used for his duel. He was busy checking his I.S's condition, and ran through his plan one last time.

It wasn't anything complicated, really. Since Chifuyu had succeeded in convincing the scientists to add a special feature - a small function that allowed the pilot to use the I.S's energy to power up his own attack - into the 'Warlord', it was now just a problem of timing. All Shirou needed to do was time so that his energy tank would be emptied right before his final – and only, if things went as planned—strike hit Cecilia, and acted like he didn't intend to do so. Of course, with all the energy built up inside his blades, Shirou could really break the blond's shield in one attack if it really hit.

Obviously, since that wasn't going to happen, he would lose for sure. But not without leaving Cecilia with the impression that Shirou was actually the winner. And while he admitted that wouldn't be able to entirely solve her problem, it could be a start. Shirou would give the girl something to distract her from burdening herself with expectations from other people. Until she was able to live up to, or somehow manage to free herself from, them. He would happily help Cecilia with that, but not before getting to know her better.

Of course, that distracting 'something' was none other than Shirou himself. (And when he said that, he did not mean that he was trying to make Cecilia to like him.) But surely she was going to be interested in the boy who could (supposedly) beat her. Then there was no doubt that she would challenge him again and again, to which Shirou would gladly accept. Thus creating some kind of friendly 'rivalry' relationship between them. Frankly speaking, he wanted to be Cecilia's friend, but Shirou just didn't think that they could be 'normal' friends considering how their first meeting went.

But he also couldn't deny that his plan could backfire badly. What if he actually hurt Cecilia's pride even without beating her straight out? What if the friendly 'rivalry' he was expecting turned out to be something more... serious? He didn't know that girl well enough to be sure how it would go after all. However, with only one day to prepare, that was his best bet at the moment.

_Unfortunately, now isn't the time to be hesitate anymore,_ thought Shirou with determination. It was my fault to have rashly started this. I will just deal with those problems when they come.

"Are you ready, Emiya-kun?" Yamada asked, pulling Shirou out of his thoughts.

"I am," he said, as his high spec sensor picked up a new signal: Sensing a standby I.S. Piloted by Cecilia Alcott. I.S codename: Blue Tears - a long ranged type suit with unique armor.

"A long ranged type, huh?" Shirou murmured. He didn't actually have much experience fighting this kind of opponent. "I guess I should observe her carefully before making any move."

"Okay then, I'm opening the door," said the vice homeroom teacher. "Good luck, Emiya-kun. Please be safe, okay?"

Giving her a reassuring smile, Shirou turned back. The arena's announcer were now counting down the seconds until the door fully opened.

"Five!"

"Four!"

"Three!"

"Two!"

"One!"

And just as the countdown finished, Shirou dashed out into the arena. From the other end, he could see Cecilia in her blue I.S doing the same.

The atmosphere in the field sure is different, thought Shirou as he looked around. He had been in several battles before, but this was the first time he's been observed by so many people during a fight.

"So you came after all, huh?" said Cecilia, who was now standing in the middle of the field.

"You know," she began in a superior voice, hands on her hips. "If you apologize now, you can still back out. I will forgive you this time, if you do."

But to the girl's surprise, Shirou turned and looked straight in her eyes.

"No, thank you. I will follow this until the end," he said flatly.

That seemed to irritate the blond classmate as a red shade of anger started to show on her face.

"Fine! Then I will make you beg for forgiveness!" She growled at him, then controlled her I.S to take off the ground. Shirou quickly followed suit.

The two of them were now facing each other in mid air. But Shirou was purposefully keeping his distance. He knew that Cecilia's suit was a long ranged type, and that he was in her comfortable range. But since this was his first serious I.S battle, Shirou thought that he should observe and gather as much information as he could.

In front of him, Cecilia had already stopped ascending. She was now raising her right arm to the side, and summoned something that Shirou guessed was a rifle, then pointed it at him. It was long, even longer than the blond's height. But that was nothing to be concerned about. They were fighting in mid air after all.

Shirou was currently wondering if he should dodge her first strike or not. While he was fully capable of doing so, it would be very weird if his energy suddenly dropped to zero without getting any big hits. So right now was a perfect chance for him to pretend to be unprepared, thus allowing Cecilia to hit him.

But on the other hand, it would be risky to be hit directly by an unknown thing like that. In the end, Shirou decided that he would take the chance, but not without something to be used as a shield to reduce the damage.

* * *

Inside the monitor room, Chifuyu, Yamada and Houki were intensely watching the battle between Shirou and Cecilia. All of the spectator seats outside were already filled up. It wasn't something unexpected though. The duel between England's representative cadet and the only male I.S pilot on the world was indeed worth being excited about.

But to Chifuyu and Houki, there was certainly something unexpected happened.

About just thirty seconds into the match, Shirou had gotten a direct hit from Cecilia's rifle. And even stranger, the boy seemed like he didn't even make any effort trying to dodge the blow.

"What happened?" Asked Houki, biting her nail anxiously. "Shirou should be able to avoid that. Did his I.S malfunction somehow?"

"Impossible," Chifuyu growled. She was now glaring at the monitor. "That suit functioned perfectly in your spar, didn't it? And it was once again checked carefully just before the match, right? Yamada?" She turned to her vice homeroom teacher.

"Yes," the petite teacher nodded solemnly. "I was the one who checked it, and didn't find any problem. I wouldn't have let him go out there otherwise."

"Then...why did he got hit like that?" Houki was very worried. It was alright if Shirou didn't win. She just wanted him to be safe. Of course she knew that the I.S was protected by an energy shield. But still...

"The only explanation was that idiot purposely took the blow." Chifuyu gritted her teeth. "Look at the screen."

The other two followed her order and turned their attentions back at the match. By that time, the light and smoke from Cecilia's shot had already faded, revealed a standing black and white I.S, with two broad short swords crossed in front of its chest. No doubt Shirou used them to shield himself from taking full damage of the attack.

"He's alright," sighed Houki in relief.

"For now, yes," said Chifuyu irritatedly. Her eyes were still locked onto the monitor. "But the Warlord's shield energy dropped to sixty percent. Luckily, that suicidal idiot still had some sense to block the shot with his swords. Imagine what would have happened if that hit him directly. That girl's rifle takes a long time to fire its shot. But the power is no joke."

"That's right," Yamada said worriedly. "Emiya-kun will be in big trouble if he doesn't start dodging now."

Hearing her teachers' words, Houki became even more worried. She looked at the screen again, hoping that Shirou wouldn't get hurt doing whatever he was planning to.

* * *

"Whew... That was dangerous," mumbled Shirou as he lowering the twin swords. His arms were now a bit numb from blocking Cecilia's shot.

_It took nearly half of my energy tank in one shot, even though I blocked. I mustn't get hit by that rifle again,_ he thought. _Fortunately, the time it took to release a shot was quite long, making it easy to avoid._

Still, Shirou had doubt that that rifle was everything the blond classmate could bring to battle. After successfully dodging the second shot, he started to charge at Cecilia, trying to make her reveal whatever secret that she was hiding.

And just as Shirou expected. Half way closing their distance, he could see a grin on the girl's face.

"I commend you for avoiding my shot," she said. "But do you really think you can beat me with a pair of swords like that?"

Just as Cecilia finished that sentence, four drones detached themselves from her I.S. They were all blue. And from seeing their shape, Shirou could guess where the codename 'Blue Tears' came from.

Immediately, the drones dashed at Shirou and started circling him. Their shots now come from all directions.

_This isn't good,_ he thought worriedly, but still keeping calm. Despite being an experienced fighter, Shirou didn't have many chance to face many opponents at once. Luckily, with the expanded vision his I.S provided him with, he would be having a much easier time than he would have under normal circumstances

That didn't mean that he could relax, though. The four drones proved themselves to be annoying. They flew around him and got into his blind spots to attack. While their power couldn't be compared to the rifle earlier, those four's speeds were far superior.

Twisted his body to dodge a shot aimed at his back, Shirou found himself got hit by another one from the left, reduced his energy down to fifty four percent. He was trying to keep track of all the drones and Cecilia at the same time.

Surprisingly, the blond's track was very easy to get a hold of. In truth, she hadn't moved at all from the moment the drones were dispatched.

_Is she just standing there to enjoy seeing me get beaten up?_ Shirou wondered. Considering Cecilia's personality and the fact that he managed to anger her, that was indeed a possibility. But it wasn't the only one.

It was either that, or the truth was the blond couldn't move even if she wanted to. It was also very possible that right now, all of her attention was being focused on controlling the drones.

But which one was it? Shirou's mind was now racing. Of course he had a way to test it out. But taking his focus off of the drones to attack Cecilia right now would easily cost him some more energy.

After a few seconds to consider, Shirou decided that he still had enough energy to spare. Quickly increased the Warlock's speed, he rushed upward, temporary left all four drones below him. Then with a fast swing, he threw the black sword in his left hand toward Cecilia.

Right at that moment, Shirou could feel that he was hit by two attacks from behind and quickly dashed sideway to avoid a third one, all along keeping an eye on the girl's direction. And he wasn't disappointed, the fourth drone had abandoned its attack on him, then threw itself in between the flying sword and Cecilia, gotten itself destroyed.

That confirmed Shirou's suspicion. The blond couldn't move while controlling the drones. However, that information cost him another fifteen percent of his energy tank.

On the bright side, having one annoying drone destroyed mean that there was one less thing to keep track of.

But Shirou instantly frowned. Something had gone wrong. Cecilia should have realized by now that he had already known about her weak point when controlling the drones, and that Shirou's speed could get past them for awhile, enough for him to completely close their distance and attack her. Yet she still refused to recall the drones to get back her movements.

It could only mean that the blond still had something up her sleeve. Something enough to deplete the rest of Shirou's energy if he got too close. That was something he wouldn't give her the chance to archive.

Shirou's original plan was to get close to Cecilia after spent some more energy. Then 'accidentally' empty the tank charging up his swords' attack, thus giving the final victory to the girl. But Fate once again proved for him that life wasn't that simple.

Seeing how all this turned out, he had no choice but to resort to his second (or third?) item in the list given to Chifuyu.

Decided on his plan B, Shirou immediately boosted his speed again, this time landed back to the ground, leaving the three remaining drones between him and Cecilia. Then raised his left arm.

In the Warlord's closed hand appeared a long black bow. It was as long as the blond's rifle. But Shirou didn't need to be floating to use it.

Obviously, he didn't want to use that bow in this match. Firstly, it wasn't really good to show people this early in the game that he also had a ranged weapon in his arsenal. Secondly, one arrow cost him twenty percent of his energy to project. Making it a powerful, but very costly weapon that Shirou had to consider carefully before using.

Not letting a second go to waste, he quickly charged his attack as the remaining drones were getting close to him.

Light appeared from Shirou's right hand and started to form an arrow's silhouette. Meanwhile, he could see the rest of his energy tank was being drained rapidly. Then Shirou quickly released his hand, aimed at Cecilia. The attack pierced through the nearest drone.

Taken by surprise, the girl froze for a moment before she regained her composure and controlled the other two drones to intercept the arrow's path.

Obviously that wasn't enough. Shirou's shot destroyed one, then two of them, and was now flying toward the defenseless Cecilia. Whose eyes were now wide open in shock.

But the girl's title of England's representative candidate wasn't just for show. Realizing that herself was in danger and the drones weren't able to block her opponent's strike, Cecilia paled, and quickly gave up her control over them and regained her movements, then dashed to the side, barely managed to avoid a direct hit. But the arrow still grazed the Blue Tears' shoulder and no doubt deal a considerable amount of damage.

However, that wasn't the end of it. Right after releasing the arrow, Shirou dismissed his bow and once again brought out his remaining white sword and dashed at Cecilia himself as what was left of his energy wasn't sufficient to project another arrow. And the only chance of getting close to the blond was when she was being too occupied by his attack to notice him on her sensor.

This time everything went just as Shirou planned. When Cecilia avoided his arrow, he was already waiting behind the girl, charging up his sword to burn the remaining energy.

'Fifteen percent remaining,' the Warlord alerted Shirou.

'Ten percent remaining,' his sensor's screen turned red as the I.S's energy dropped too low.

'Five percent remaining,' still charging up, Shirou struck Cecilia. Almost at the same time, a signal echoed through the entire arena.

"The match is over!" The referee's voice interrupted Shirou's attack and made him stop his blade right before it touched the Blue Tears. "The winner is Cecilia Alcott!"

"Eh?" Looking confused, Cecilia turned her head around the field. Until she saw Shirou right behind her, his glowing white blade frozen in something that was no doubt a devastating attack. Her eyes widened in surprise.

"Congratulations, Alcott-san," said Shirou with a warm smile. "I lost. You are the winner of this duel."

Then leaving the dumbstruck blond behind, he descended to the ground and made his way back into the preparation room, where Houki, Chifuyu and Yamada were waiting for him. And from the looks on their faces, Shirou could guess that trouble had decided to show itself once again.

**End of Chapter 2.**


	3. Chapter 3: Transfer Student

**Author's note: Chapter 3 is finally out, and this update was much shorter than the one before too.**

**I want to thanks all of my readers and reviewers. You guys really motivated me to continue writing.**

**Now onto the chapter itself. This chapter is kind of casual, where Shirou interacts with people around him and develope theirs connections. Thus there will be more conversations in it than the previous ones. But there are also some important events added as well.**

** That's all for now, please enjoy.**

_**Beta by T. Alana M.**_

* * *

"Hello, Fujimura residence." Taiga's voice came out from the phone.

"Hello, Fuji-nee. It's me, Shirou. How are you?" asked Shirou. He stood inside one of the academy's phone booth. Over the last few days, he was too occupied by the duel with Cecilia that he forgot to call Taiga to check on her and his other friends back at Fuyuki. So he ended his morning routine a bit earlier today, came back to his room for a quick shower, then went out to the phone booth before coming to class.

"Oh, look who finally called?" Her voice certainly didn't seem to be happy. "You told me you would call after your first day at school."

"I know. I'm sorry, Fuji-nee," Shirou quickly apologized. "It's just that many things happened so I couldn't find the time to call you. You know, I'm still getting used to the new school and all."

"Alright, alright," He could hear her sigh on the other end. "So, how were the last two days?"

"They were okay, I guess," said Shirou, scratching his head. Of course, his start at the I.S academy couldn't exactly be called 'okay' with all the problems he went through. But Shirou knew that Taiga wouldn't like it if she heard about him getting into troubles on his first day.

"It was a bit hard, actually," he continued. "You know, this is an all girls school after all. Or at least it used to be until now."

"Yes, that." Taiga replied. "Behave yourself around all those girls, will you?" She sounded so serious that if Shirou didn't know her better, he would've thought that she was joking for sure.

"I will, I will, Fuji-nee," He sighed, smiling a little. To be able to hear a familiar voice had helped Shirou to feel a little more peaceful. Especially when he had already had to deal with a lot of problems.

"So how's Chifuyu's house? Did she make you do all the chores around there?" snickered Taiga.

"Ah...about that..." Shirou hesitated, wondering if it was a good idea to break the news for her. But it wasn't like he could keep it hidden forever, as Chifuyu would tell her friend sooner or later. And if Taiga was going to hear about it anyway, then it better came from Shirou himself. "Actually, Fuji-nee. Since the school's policy stated that its students have to stay inside the dorm to ensure their safety, I couldn't stay at Orimura-san's house like we intended..."

"What?" Taiga gasped as her shocked voice came through the phone. "And I'm only finding about this now? And wait a minute, that school was an all-girl one right? So please tell me that you at least got your own room."

"Eh...please don't get angry, Fuji-nee..." Shirou was desperately trying to find a way to explain this to the furious Tiger. But his hesitation only made it worse.

"Seriously?" She growled. "What are they thinking to let a boy and a girl of that age to stay together in a room?"

"Please calm down," Shirou quickly reassure her. "Nothing's going to happen. Don't you trust me, Fuji-nee?"

"That's..." Taiga seemed to be taken aback with his question. "It...It's not like I don't trust you, Shirou. But still, it's not proper."

"Don't worry, Fuji-nee," he sighed quietly in relief. "Orimura-san is our dorm's supervisor. She's not going to let anything improper happen under her watch."

"That's...fine. I suppose... But I still have to talk with Chifuyu about this." Finally, Taiga had calmed down. And Shirou immediately used this chance to change the topic.

"Fuji-nee, do you remember Houki?" he asked. "She practiced kendo at your family's dojo when she was a kid."

"The little girl that followed you everywhere?" Taiga answered after a short pause. "Yes, I remember her. She was a talented kid. And I just told you about she winning the international championship awhile ago, didn't I? What about her?"

"You see, it turned out that she's studying here too. Houki's one of my classmates." Actually, she was also Shirou roommate. But enough about the information of his living conditions for now, since he didn't want to enrage the Tiger once again.

"Really?" Again, Taiga seemed to be surprised, but in a good way. "That's good. Having someone you know around when staying at an unfamiliar place like that. Chifuyu is one thing, but it's better to have someone your age that you can talk to."

"You really like Houki, don't you?" Shirou asked, not really surprised. He could see why Taiga and Houki would've gotten along nicely.

"I do. She's a good girl," said Taiga happily. "Maybe I should talk to her sometimes. And we'll see if I can ask her to keep an eye on you too, so that she can give you a lesson with her bokken if you tried to make any moves on the girls." Shirou swore that he could hear joy in her voice. Was punishing him really that enjoyable?

"Give it a rest already, Fuji-nee," answered Shirou, now smiling a little again. "Enough about me, so how are you? And how are the others doing right now?"

He was curious about Rin and Saber since they left awhile ago. And while Shirou was sure that they would be alright (who could've harmed a prodigy magus and a heroic spirit's party anyway?), it was still troubling him a bit since the two hadn't contacted him since.

But the person that made Shirou worry the most was Illya. Despite just seeing her three days ago, he couldn't help but feeling anxious about the little girl. Her loneliness when all of her friends were gone was a problem, but what Shirou was concerned about was his little sister's health.

Being the vessel of the Holy Grail, Illya had been granted an amazing power when it came to magecraft. But that also came with detrimental effects. Since the girl was a homunculus, she wasn't designed to live past the end of the fifth Grail War. It had caused some problems, to say the least.

Firstly, Illya wouldn't be able to age anymore. She would be stuck with the appearance of a child forever.

For some, the idea of staying young indefinitely would be tempting - but only if youth was accompanied by immortality. Ilya, on the other hand, was struggling just to survive. In theory, Illya should've died already when the War ended, as she had absorbed the power of all of the fallen Servants during the War. That had put a huge toll on her body, making it degenerate quickly. The girl was only able to live until now thanks to Rin, who had figured out a way to keep her alive using one of Saber's Noble Phantasm, which was now being kept by Shirou - the Avalon - to heal the degenerated parts of Illya's body.

Of course, they weren't stupid. Shirou, Rin, and even Illya understood that that method wouldn't work forever. Part of that was because the Avalon required Shirou or Saber's od to be activated, that made the little girl to be depend on them, which meant that at least one of them had to be around Illya in case anything bad happened.

That shouldn't be a problem at the moment, as she only need to heal once a month, and Shirou could easily come home on the weekends to help her with that. But if Rin was right, then Illya's condition could gradually take a turn for the worse. It would be a huge trouble if her degeneration became faster while both Shirou and Saber weren't available. On top of that, they still weren't able to find a permanent solution for that problem.

"Shirou, are you still there?" Taiga's voice pulled him out of his unhappy thoughts about Illya. Quickly shaking his head, Shirou answered.

"I'm here. Sorry Fuji-nee, I was thinking about something..."

"Really, you..." He could hear she sighed on the other end of the phone. "Now I have to say it all over again?"

"I'm really sorry," Shirou apologized again. "So what were you saying earlier?"

"I'm doing fine, thank you." Said Taiga mockingly, then she continued. "Also, Rin and Saber called yesterday." Her words made Shirou's heart jump. "They were doing well in England, so don't worry." She continued. "And Rin wanted to talk to you about something, so she told me to tell you to get a cell phone already, so that she can contact you when needed."

"Really?" Shirou raised his eyebrow. "Wouldn't it be quicker if she just gave me her number so I could call her now?"

"I asked her the same question, you know?" Answered Taiga, giggling again. "But she said that she was using a public phone booth, and she doesn't have a cell phone herself, so..."

"I see..." Shirou sighed. He shouldn't be surprised; it was Rin they were talking about. It was odd enough that the girl didn't make him carry some kind of magical communication device around. Telling her to get a cell phone? That would absolutely be a joke. It was lucky that Rin was still be able to use normal household phone. But then again, from what Shirou heard, there was no phone or electric line inside the Clock Tower's dorm, where Rin and Saber were staying at the moment, so she couldn't use one even if she wanted to.

"But I think that's a good idea," said Taiga. "If you get a cell phone then it will be easier for us to contact you. And if you did I wouldn't have to wait for you to call like this."

"Well if you put it like that, I will see about getting one." Now that Shirou was thinking about it he thought that it could be convenient to have a cell phone.

"Great, I'll send you the money for one. But nothing too expensive, okay?" said Taiga happily.

"Of course Fuji-nee," answered Shirou with a smile, although she couldn't see it. Then he decided to ask about the one he was worrying about most. "How about Illya? Did she come to visit you?"

"No, she didn't." Obviously, Taiga's answer didn't make him happy, but it was understandable. It had only been three days since Illya moved back to her mansion after all. So it might be a little too soon for a visit.

"Don't worry, Shirou." Taiga continued, reassuring him. "I'm sure she will come over soon. I like her, too. She 's so adorable," then she sighed. "Poor girl, she must be missing her friends very much. Especially you, Shirou. So make sure to come back and play with her sometimes."

"Of course," said Shirou. "I plan to come back to visit this weekend. So if Illya come by, can you please tell her that?"

"Sure," answered Taiga with a cheerful voice. "She's going to be happy about this. I will be too, I miss your cooking very much."

_Really?_ wondered Shirou while face palming himself. _It's my cooking that you miss but not me?_ But then he smiled, _that's just like Taiga. She's a glutton._

"I'm sure Illya will be happy." Finally he said, "But cooking for you? We will have to see about that," he added jokingly.

"Awww... Shirou you meanie." He couldn't see Taiga right now, but he could be sure that she was pouting.

"That's for choosing my food over me, Fuji-nee." Shirou answered, grinning. "Look, I have to go now. Class is going to start soon."

"Ah, okay. Send my regards to Chifuyu and Houki, will you?" Taiga said quickly. "Goodbye, see you this weekend, Shirou!"

"Goodbye, Fuji-nee. See you later."

With that, Shirou hung up the phone and started heading to the school building. He didn't really want to go there though. After what happened between him and Houki and Chifuyu yesterday after his duel, he wasn't too comfortable seeing them right now.

_I wonder if they're still angry,_ Shirou thought. It was awkward enough sharing a room with Houki last night. It wouldn't be good for his health being her roommate if this went on.

* * *

Houki had just left the cafeteria, and was now heading to class. She was a bit tired since she wasn't able to get a good sleep two nights in a row. And the reason for that was no other than her roommate.

Houki was too anxious being in the same room with Shirou on the first night. But yesterday, she was just angry. That was also the reason that made her came down to the cafeteria for breakfast, instead of eating in her room with him.

_He is an idiot, super idiot._ Houki thought angrily. Of course, being like this toward Shirou made her feel guilty and awful.

But she couldn't help it. She worried about him and cared for him. How could she not get upset after seeing what Shirou himself did yesterday during the duel?

Purposely taking a rifle shot, throwing away his own weapon, even trying to reduce his own energy on purpose. Houki gritted her teeth why stomping through the hallway. What kind of person would do that? What the hell had he been thinking?

Shirou had already explained to her and Chifuyu why he did all those things. But while hearing them was one thing, being able to accept those explanations was something entirely different. And Houki could see that Chifuyu was with her on this one, as both of them gave Shirou a fierce scolding right after he dismissed the Warlord.

But Houki doubted that it had done any good. She didn't know much about him, but she had already heard about his dream of helping people. And based on Shirou's explanation yesterday, his actions were to help Cecilia Alcott. If that was the case, then it was very likely that whatever anyone said wouldn't be able to make the boy change his mind.

Was that how he got that scar? Had he been protecting somebody? The image of Shirou's scar made Houki's heart clench. She knew that right now, she had no chance of stopping the boy from doing what it took to achieve his dream. But she also didn't want him to be reckless or put himself in danger for the sake of others.

Then Houki realized that, rather than being angry with Shirou, maybe she was just being angry at herself for not being able to do anything for him. But again, even if she'd been able to do something, would she have done it? Houki knew the happiness of achieving her own dream, could she bring herself to stop someone else, especially the one she cared about, from doing the same?

These thoughts made Houki even more depressed and angry. But she still hoped that one day, she'd finally get to know Shirou better. Then maybe she would have a chance to convince him to choose another path to achieve his dream without getting himself hurt, or even worse, killed.

Quickly shook her head and took a deep breath, Houki thought about her 'date' with Shirou later that day. At least there was something happy to keep her mind busy. And to her relief, it helped, even just a little. It was obvious that Houki still wasn't all that happy now. But it was still a long time until classes ended, she would somehow manage by then.

* * *

Cecilia Alcott had just gotten out of her morning shower, and was now dressing up in her uniform to go to school. Habitually, she looked into the mirror. But this time the only thing she saw was a tired version of herself looking back.

Let out a big sigh, she returned to put on her skirt.

Obviously, Cecilia couldn't sleep at all last night, the fight against Shirou had really gotten to her. And the more she thought about it, the more confused she became. In the end, Cecilia lost her appetite and decided to skip breakfast.

She was now having mixed feelings. At first, she got angry and still was now, which was understandable, anyone would've gotten upset after a match like that. As expected, Cecilia won the duel, but she didn't feel like it was her victory at all. Instead, she started to get the feeling that Shirou had gone easy on her. Especially his smile before he left...

But then she started to get curious about the boy. Who was he really? There was no way for a normal boy to be able to make a representative cadet like herself feel like she was losing, and maybe even went easy on her on top of that? Heck, a normal boy shouldn't be able to activate an I.S in the first place.

_I will challenge you again, Shirou Emiya_, thought Cecilia, shutting her eyes tightly, trying to ignore all the uncomfortable feelings surging inside her mind.

_I have to find out who you really are. And next time, it will be truly MY victory._ Finally opened her eyes with determination, she walked out of the room and shut the door behind her back.

* * *

Shirou finally made it to class. But unfortunately, just as he approached the door, both Houki and Cecilia also arrived.

"Eh..." He stuttered as the three of them stared at each other with emotions ranging from awkwardness to outrage.

"Ah... Good mor-" Before Shirou could finish his greeting, Houki swiftly turned away with a loud 'Hmph' and enter the classroom, completely ignoring him.

_My, my, this is troublesome..._ Scratching his head, he turned over to the remaining girl, who was now staring at him intensely.

"Uhm... Good morning, Alcott-san," Shirou said hesitantly. That seemed to have stopped the girl's stare, as she quickly shook her head and was now looking down bashfully.

"Are you alright, Alcott-san?" He asked, trying to show a little consideration.

"..." Cecilia, who was now blushing a little, mumbled something that Shirou couldn't hear at all.

"I...I'm sorry, but what did you just say?" He was clearly puzzled.

"Are you deaf?" Now the girl in front of him was shouting all of a sudden. Her loud voice made Shirou jump. "I said it was your victory. And no, of course I'm not alright, idiot." The proud representative candidate was now flushing like a tomato, but Shirou doubt that it came from embarrassment, more likely she was now furious.

"I...I see," He quickly backed away. "I'm so sorry if I hurt you somehow, I really didn't intend to..."

"Of course you did. You dimwit," His blond classmate was now shooting Shirou sharp glares. Then she gritted her teeth. "And don't say you didn't plan it. It was obvious that you went easy on me yesterday. I'm good enough to realize when I'm being toyed with."

_Damn, she noticed it._ Shirou paled, but still didn't lose his composure. "I apologize for that. It's just..."

"Save your excuses." Cecilia cut in. "That really hurt my pride, you know?".

But then to his surprise, the girl sighed deeply, and looked at him again. This time, her anger seemed to have disappeared. "But somehow, I'm not as angry as I should be. I can feel it, of course. But more than that, I'm curious."

Shirou tilted his head, trying to figure out where the blond was going with this. But he didn't say or ask anything, now wasn't a good time for questions.

"Who are you, really?" Finally she asked in a soft, but serious voice. Her eyes locked onto Shirou's.

"Eh...I'm Shirou Emiya, your classmate..?" Shirou answered frantically, knowing fully well that his answer wasn't what Cecilia wanted.

"Don't play dumb," she growled and slowly walking toward Shirou. "You know what I mean by that question."

Feeling cold sweat starting to dot his forehead, Shirou slowly backed away. His mind was now racing, trying to find a way to get out of this situation without revealing his true identity.

Fortunately, luck was on his side this time. As almost immediately, the school bell rang, signaled the start of first period.

Sighing again, Cecilia finally said. "You are a mysterious person, Shirou Emiya. You've got my interest." Then she stood straight, pointed a finger at him and declared with a confident expression. "Next time we duel, _I_ will be the _real_ victor."

Then the blond stalked into the classroom. When she went past Shirou, he could've swore that he saw a faint smile on her lips.

_That was dangerous... But at least she's interested in me now, so I guess that was a success._ Wiping off the sweat, Shirou was about to walk through the door, before noticing that almost every student was peaking out of the classrooms. His and Cecilia's little talk had no doubt attracted unnecessary attention.

"Wow, first you got Shinonono-san. Now you even get Alcott-san too? That's amazing!" A familiar voice came from the window of his classroom. And Shirou realized right away that was the brunette girl who he saw in the dorm's hallway yesterday morning.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he flatly denied the accusation.

"Oh come on," the girl leaned out of the window even more, her eyes were now sparkling. "We all saw you and Shinonono-san come out from that room together. And just now didn't Alcott-san say that you got her interest? She said that, right, everybody?" She finished her question by looking around. And just as Shirou feared, everyone agreed with her and they all nodded in unison.

"That wasn't what she meant by..." Once again, he found himself having to explain something impossible. But then, once again, he was spared from doing so, as the fearsome voice of Chifuyu came from behind. A big and heavy book landed of the top of his head as a bonus.

"What are you all doing out here? Class has started already," she scolded in a powerful voice. "Everyone, back to your seats. NOW!"

All the girls obeyed Chifuyu and pulled their head back in, while Shirou dragged himself into the classroom, still seeing stars while rubbing the sore spot on his head.

Once he was inside and properly seated. He secretly snuck a glance at Houki. It seemed that the earlier commotion only made the situation with her worse, as his roommate was now wearing a flushed face, looking out of the window bitterly, firmly biting her lower lip, obviously trying to prevent her anger from showing.

Then he turned his gaze to Cecilia to see that the girl was now once again intensely staring at him. It was like the little event hadn't affected her at all.

Returning his attention to the blackboard, Shirou sighed, asking himself if there would be any more unexpected problems showing up today.

But he didn't have to wonder for long, as Chifuyu and Yamada both walked into their positions in front of the board. Then the petite vice-homeroom teacher announced.

"Everyone, we have a new transfer student today," she said with a bright smile. "Please welcome your new classmate, Ichika Orimura-kun."

Hearing that almost made Shirou fall over. He could hear that around him, everyone was getting excited too, as questions started to burst out.

"Wait, wait. Did she just say '-kun'?"

"Yes, she did. But it can't be -right?"

"And also, did she say his name was Orimura?"

* * *

During yet another commotion made by the class, the new student made his way in, and stood next to Chifuyu.

And he was, indeed, a genuine teenage boy. He was a quite good-looking boy with short black hair and dark brown eyes. His body was slim, but firm, no doubt the result of intensive training.

That aside, everyone in the room understood what this new student's presence meant - the appearance of the second male I.S pilot in the whole world.

"Okay. Let's start your introduction, Orimura-kun," Yamada happily exclaimed. "And then you can take the seat next to Emiya-kun. You two are both the only male I.S pilots, so please get along with each other."

* * *

After school, Shirou found himself sitting on a bench in front of the dorm, waiting for Houki to change so that they could go shopping together. Tonight was her celebration party after all.

There was no denying that Shirou was worried about his roommate's attitude toward him. But from his point of view, it wasn't as bad as he thought. Houki still agreed to go shopping with him, and that was a good sign.

Besides, Shirou had more important things to think about now. The newly transferred student - Ichika Orimura – made him curious. During the boy's introduction in class earlier, Shirou was able to pick out some good information.

Firstly, as his name suggested, the boy was Chifuyu's little brother.

Secondly, it seemed that this Ichika had also 'accidentally' activated a test I.S during his high school entrance test somewhere else. And the reason for his late transfer was because of some paperwork problems.

_So it's possible that Ichika is also a magus,_ thought Shirou. It was the most acceptable conclusion at the moment, as the only way for a male to be able to activate an I.S was through magecraft. At least, that was the only way the Shirou knew about, since that had been ho he had done it.

But he couldn't completely dismiss other possibilities. In case the guy wasn't a magus, then his connection with Chifuyu was the second most possible explanation.

_I have to test him out somehow, to see if he's truly a magus or not. And if that's the case, then it could be both good and bad._

The bad side was that if Ichika was indeed a magus, then it could cause some problems. He knew about the I.S, and knew the way to activate them with od. If somehow the Mage Association got wind of that, they would try to get Ichika and the knowledge about I.S for sure. After that, the bastards would use everything at their disposal to perfectly cover the incident.

If Shirou was the only one who knew about this, he was confident that if the worst ever happened, he could fight back the Enforcers gunning after him long enough for himself to escape. But now the trouble was doubled if what he suspected turned out to be true.

The good side would be having another magus beside Shirou himself. It was a small consolation compared to the potential thread mentioned earlier. But Shirou thought that if that was the case, he could move in with Ichika, thus solving the workshop problem.

But that thought sounded so silly even in his head. So in the end, Shirou just hoped that he was wrong, and Ichika wasn't a magus at all.

Also, during class, Shirou had used the chance to talk with his new classmate a bit. And from what he heard, Ichika had no experience with the I.S, and the guy might be a bit naive. But he appeared to be a good person nevertheless.

Those were just first impressions. It would take more than a few chats for Shirou to decide if the guy was trustworthy or not.

"I'm done. Shall we go, Shirou?" Houki's voice interrupted his train of thought. He looked up and saw his roommate standing in front of him in her casual clothes. Usually, Houki wore uniform at school, and some pajamas when she was inside her room in the evening. So...

"This is the first time I see you dressed like that," he complimented her. "It looks good on you."

"Re...Really?" Houki's face flushed a little. "You really think so?"

"I do," Shirou nodded and gave the girl a little smile. "Well let's go then. We still have a lot of cooking to be done after this."

"Sure." She was now smiling happily too. They walked side by side. It was a nice change of pace, having something different to do than just coming back to the dorm after class, even if they were just going grocery shopping.

Also, the afternoon was pleasant, with beautiful sunset and cool weather. It would be a waste not to go outside and enjoy it.

"So what do you have in mind, Shirou?" asked Houki as she turned to look at him.

"You mean what am I gonna cook?" Shirou turned to his childhood friend. And he continued when the girl gave him a little nod. "Here, I made a list of what we're going to buy," he pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and gave it to Houki.

"Seriously?" She was clearly surprised after taking a look at the list. "You really can cook all this?" she asked with widened eyes.

"Of course," Shirou grinned proudly. "Do you think the academy's mall will have everything we need?"

"Yeah..." murmured Houki. The girl was still staring at the piece of paper in surprise. "I think it does. The mall was built for the school students and the staff so that they don't have to go outside after all. So it should have a wide range of goods."

"Hmm...we'll see when we get there," he said. "By the way, what do you think about the new transfer student?"

"Ichika?" Finally taking her eyes off the list, Houki turned her attention back to Shirou. "It's a bit unbelievable, isn't it? Only females are supposed to be able to use the I.S. And now suddenly we have two guys who can do it."

Shirou raised an eyebrow.

"Did you just call him 'Ichika'?" he asked. "You seem to be familiar with him."

"Yeah, we're also childhood friends." Houki nodded. "I met him when I had already stopped practicing kendo at Fujimura-san's dojo. So it's natural that you don't know about our relationship."

"I see," mumbled Shirou. "So what do you think of him?"

"Well..." She hesitated. "To be honest, I haven't seen him for years, so I can't really tell," her cheeks were now flushed a bit. "But from my memories, Ichika was a good and brave boy. He used to protect me from being bullied."

Immediately, as if realizing the meaning of her own words. Houki frantically waved her hands and added. "But it's not like I like him or anything. It's not like that, okay?" She was now blushing deeply.

_Well, that's self-destruct for you,_ thought Shirou as he smiled gently, seeing Houki's reaction. And that made the girl's face turned into a crimson color.

"Wh...What?" She stuttered, throwing him sharp glares.

"Nothing at all," answered Shirou, still keeping his smile on. "I was just thinking that this Ichika seems to be a good guy."

Or at least, he _had been_ a good guy, Shirou silently added. There's no way to tell how he is now.

"Yeah, he is." Houki agreed as they reached their destination.

After that, the two of them were busy trying to find all the things they needed. So there weren't many conversations. Most of what they said was about the quality of the food, or discussing the prices. Undoubtedly, Shirou and his childhood friend had had a good time together.

* * *

"Hey, Houki," Shirou called as he and his roommate walked on their way back from the shopping trip.

"Yes?" Houki looked up at him.

"You see..." Shirou began. "I want to apologize for making you worry during yesterday's match," then he paused and scratch his head. "I didn't say it yesterday, so...I'm sorry, Houki."

Hearing Shirou's words, the girl 's face flushed a little. And she turned away. "It...It's fine. As long as you know your mistake..."

But after awhile, Houki turned back, and looked straight into Shirou's eyes. "You see. I've been wondering, how could you do that? I mean, you risked yourself to help others, even someone you just met like Alcott-san..."

Staring at her for awhile, Shirou considered his answer. He knew full well why he'd done that. How could he ever forget the smile on his adopted father's face when he found a boy who was still alive in the midst of the raging inferno? The man had looked so happy back then. Shirou wanted to know that happiness of being able to save someone else, even if he had to put himself in danger.

But in the end, he chose not to tell Houki all the details. Now wasn't a good time to ruin the celebration mood by talking about a fire that almost killed him.

"That's..." said Shirou, carefully choosing his words. "You remember my father, Kiritsugu? Since I was a kid, I have always looked up at him as a Hero of Justice. Sounds silly, right?"

Houki just kept looking at him without saying anything.

"He loved to help people, just like me now, I guess," Shirou continued. "And there was one time, he saved the life of a little boy. And I caught a glimpse of his expression at that moment. You know what? He was smiling. And he seemed to be so happy. That image has been kind of haunting me until now. From that time on, I've always wanted to know how did my father feel back then. To be able to achieve that, I've gone and help everyone I could, I don't care if myself get hurt."

"But..." Houki looked down bashfully. "Have you ever thought about the people who care about you? Imagine how they would feel if you got hurt."

"I'm aware of that," Shirou nodded, scratching his head again. "But sometimes, it can't be helped. In the end, you just can't save everyone. Someone has to bear the consequences. And I'm willing to be in that position."

He paused a bit, trying to figure out Houki's expression, then added. "I guess that's just how I am. I'm sorry for making you worry."

Hearing that, the girl let out a big sigh.

"Yeah..." She said while looking away from him. "I guess you are just that kind of idiot."

"I really am, right?" Shirou grinned. "Well, here we are. Let's get back to our room so we can prepare for the party."

Houki nodded and gave him a little smile as they started making their way back to the dorm room. But right before Shirou and Houki walk through the door. A familiar voice suddenly came from behind.

"Here you are. Where have you two been?"

Shirou turned back to see his homeroom teacher was now approaching the two of them.

"Emiya-kun, Shinonono-san." Chifuyu cleared her throat. "There's something we have to discuss. Is now a good time?"

Shirou looked over to Houki, only to see his own puzzled expression on her face. Then he turned to Chifuyu again.

"Of course, please come in, Orimura-sensei."

* * *

About one hour ago, Chifuyu had come up to Shirou and Houki's room. She wanted to talk with them about the room arrangement. Since her little brother - Ichika - had transferred in, there were now two male students. So it was obvious that Shirou had to move in with him. But when she knocked on the door, there was no answer.

_Guess they are not in the room then,_ thought Chifuyu, deciding that she should come back to her office and return later in the evening.

Sitting behind her desk, Chifuyu started to think about the latest events.

During yesterday's duel, she had been able to see much more of the mysterious boy's skill. He was an experienced fighter, no doubt. But that made Chifuyu wonder just what had happened in Shirou's past that let him gain fighting skills like that. One couldn't have gained that level of skill and control without having been in real fights, not just practicing in the dojo.

_He's just making me more and more curious,_ she thought, drumming her fingers on the polished countertop.

Although, even with experience, Shirou's way of fighting and his strategies were something that Chifuyu definitely couldn't approve of. They were too risky and reckless. Of course he was able to achieve his goal in the end. But if the boy kept being like that, he would be in real danger for sure. Needless to say, Chifuyu didn't want any harm to befall the boy. Not only because of the curiosity she was having on him now, but also because Shirou somehow could be seen as Taiga's little brother. Chifuyu had already given her best friend her word that she would look after the boy.

There had been a little commotion before class that morning too. Chifuyu had been able to observe it from the start, and only stepped in when it was getting out of hand. It seemed like Shirou succeeded in garnering interest from the British girl. But it was nothing unexpected, the boy was an interesting mystery after all.

_And now there are two boys who were able to activate the I.S..._ Chifuyu started shifting her thoughts to her own brother. _Luckily, Shirou was here first, so he can help Ichika to get used to things around the academy._

Then she stood up, and walked around the desk. It had been an hour since she came back here. Now was time to see if the two students had returned to their room yet.

_And I guess I also need to speak to Tabane_.

Shinonono Tabane a.k.a 'The most wanted person in the world' was Houki's older sister. She was a genius scientist and also was the inventor of the I.S. So if anyone knew anything about this strangeness, it would be her.

"Ha, like contacting that woman is that easy..." Chifuyu murmured as she left the room.

Luckily for her, when she arrived at Shirou and Houki's room, the two of them had just come back from what looked like a shopping trip.

"There you are. Where have you two been?" Chifuyu called out.

* * *

Inside his room, after preparing the tea for everyone, Shirou sat down at the dining table and looked at Chifuyu, who had taken the seat opposite of him questioningly. Then he turned his gaze to Houki next to him. The girl obviously had no clue of what was going on either.

"Are you guys going to have a party or something?" Asked Chifuyu after taking a look at what Shirou and Houki just bought.

"Ah...yeah," Answered Shirou, smiling at her. "We are going to celebrate Houki on winning the championship." And then he quickly added, waving his hand when he saw Chifuyu's skeptical look. "I know it's a bit late. But well, I wasn't with her at the time. So I'm making it up for her now."

"I see," the homeroom teacher nodded. Then she turned to Houki. "You are lucky. This guy may be a bit of an idiot, but his cooking skills are excellent."

"I know, sensei." Houki said happily. "He just made breakfast for us the other day."

"Really?" Chifuyu raised an eyebrow, and then threw both of them a glance, smirking all the while. "You two have gotten that close already huh? Looks like the rumors are true after all."

Shirou almost slammed his face onto the table hearing the teacher's words. While Houki's face went as red as it could be in record time.

"Wha-What rumors?" Houki frantically trying to explain while Shirou just face palmed himself. "They are not true, sensei. Not at all. Please stop joking."

_I didn't know that Orimura-san liked teasing others like that... thought_ Shirou as he let out a big sigh, already accepting the fact that the rumors about his social life had even reached the teachers' ears.

"Now now, there's nothing to be embarrassed about. You two are still young after all," said Chifuyu, trying to be as serious and understanding as she could be. It would have been more convincing if she hadn't been laughing.

"It's-that's-we're not..." Houki seemed at loss for words. The poor girl tried to argue back. But in the end, she just looked down to hide her crimson face, not saying anything.

"So... What do you need to tell us, sensei?" Taking advantage of the momentary silence, Shirou asked, directed the conversation out of the dangerous zone.

"What? Ah right." Chifuyu turned her attention back to Shirou. The teacher tried to supress her laughter. "Right, I came to talk to you and Shinonono-san here about your room assignment, Emiya-kun."

"Ah, so that's it." Shirou sighed again, scratching his head. "I figured it might be so."

"What?" Asked Houki. Her eyes widened in surprise. "Does...Does this mean you are going to move out? And you already knew about this?"

"Yes and no," answered Shirou, turned to his childhood friend. "But it's to be expected. Now that Orimura-sensei's little brother's here. There's no reason for me to keep staying in the same room with a girl while I can move in with him."

"That's right," Chifuyu nodded, sipping on her tea. "Now that there are two male students, they have to move in together. It's not really appropriate for a boy and a girl your age to live together, is it?"

"But...But I'm okay with it. I don't mind Shirou living here," Houki said quickly. For some reason, she looked a bit terrified now. "And you are alright with it too, right Shirou?"

"Me?... Ah, yeah. I'm alright, I guess," Shirou was surprised from being asked suddenly.

"See, sensei. He has no problem too. So..." The girl turned back to Chifuyu.

"Now, calm down, Shinonono-san," Chifuyu cut her off. "I understand that you want him to stay here. But please understand that Emiya-san was only assigned to stay in this room as a temporary solution," then she turned to Shirou. "Besides, I've talked to his guardian, and she also agreed for him to come stay with my little brother."

"You talked to Fuji-nee?" asked Shirou in surprise. "When? I just called her this morning."

"She also called me this morning," Answered Chifuyu. "You understand, right Shinonono-san? Even I don't have much of a say in this, since it's his guardian's wish."

"I know Fujimura-san," said Houki desperately as she stood up. "I will give her a call to ask for her permission to let Shirou stay here."

"And I advise you not to," Chifuyu said calmly, sipping on her tea again. But there was something in her voice that made Shirou raise an eyebrow.

"Wait a minute." He asked suspiciously. "You...You didn't tell Fuji-nee that me and Houki are living together, did you?"

"I did," the teacher answered flatly, which made Shirou almost hit his head against the table again.

"Why did you have to do that?" he groaned, sipping tea to calm himself.

"I saw no reason to hide it," Chifuyu said simply. "Why? Did you not want Taiga to know about it?"

"Well, to be honest, yeah. But never mind now." Shirou waved his hand. "It's not like I can keep it hidden forever."

"True," the teacher nodded. "So, any questions?"

"Wa...wait. What's going on here?" Asked Houki, who was still standing. Now she was looking back and forth between the two at the table, clearly confused.

"Orimura-sensei is right, Houki," Shirou turned to his childhood friend. "You shouldn't call Fuji-nee right now."

"Why is that?" she asked, still not getting it. "Is it because she's mad at me for being your roommate?"

"Well, listen. She's not mad at you," Shirou slowly explained. "It wasn't you who decided for me to stay here. It's more like she's mad at me for not telling her about this in the first place."

"Then why shouldn't I..." Houki began. But Shirou cut her off.

"Because Fuji-nee tends to overreact about things like this," he told her. "And she's angry at me at the moment. And when she's angry...well...she acts like a child pouting and throwing tantrum. You won't be able to talk to her when she's like that."

"I...I see..." After hearing his explanation, Houki slumped down in her chair, clearly disappointed.

_Even I don't wanna deal with her when she's like that,_ thought Shirou when he reached over and pour Chifuyu another cup of tea. The teacher remained silent, but Shirou thought that she was enjoying their conversation.

_Only Rin and Saber can talk her down_, he sat back down, rubbing his forehead_. Oh...I hope they'll call again soon, before I go home this weekend."_

But the chances of that happening was rather slim. So Shirou started to think twice about cutting off Taiga's share of food. After all, the Tiger was weak against his cooking.

"So it's settled," Chifuyu stood up and declared. "Emiya-kun, you will be moving in with Ichika starting from tomorrow. So you have one day to pack your things. Stay back tomorrow after school and I will give you your new room key. And Shinonono-san, please be ready for a new roommate, since we will have more transfer students in the near future."

"Okay..." Houki looked like she had already given up .

"Hold on a second, sensei," Shirou said, confirming what he just heard. "There will be more transfer students? Are there going to be more male pilots?"

"The next one is a girl," Chifuyu shook her head. "But that isn't really your business, is it?"

"Yeah, you are right," he admitted. "I was just curious."

"That's everything," said Chifuyu as she walked to the door. "I'm sorry for doing this right before your celebration. But I think you can understand why I had to. Good night. See you in class."

"Goodbye, sensei," Houki mumbled, still not looking up.

"Good night, Orimura-sensei," Shirou's gaze followed the homeroom teacher as she shut the door behind her back. He had intended to follow her and ask some questions about her brother. But after seeing the state Houki was in, he just thought that it wouldn't be a good idea to leave her alone right now, so those questions had to wait until tomorrow.

With that in mind, Shirou kept remaining seated as he turned over to Houki, trying to figure what she was feeling at the moment.

"Are you alright, Houki?" He asked.

"I'm fine," Houki answered. Her voice was small and seemed to be stuck in her throat, and she still refused to look up.

"Are you crying?" Shirou asked again, trying to show consideration.

"No, I'm not," this time Houki growled at him. She finally looked up and shot a sharp glare at Shirou. Her face was still a bit flushed, and there was a little red in the corner of her eyes. Then after realizing that Shirou was looking at her, Houki once again turned her head away.

"I...I'm sorry," said Shirou. It was clear that Houki was upset, so he needed to find a way to cheer her up.

There was no response.

"Look," he tried again. "It's true that I'm gonna move out. But it's not like I won't be coming back here to visit, you know."

The silence continued.

"So how about I come here at meal times so we can eat together?" he tried.

Houki was still not saying anything. But just when Shirou was about to give up, she turned over and asked in a strained voice.

"Really?"

"About me coming over?" Shirou asked. But when he saw the glare she was giving him, he continued immediately. "Yes, of course. I will come by every day."

"Ahh..." Houki sighed. "Fine. I guess there's no other way," then she stood up. "Wait a sec. I'm gonna wash my face, then we can start cooking. It's getting late, and you have many things to do tomorrow."

"Actually," Shirou grinned. "I still haven't got a chance to really unpack my stuff yet. I was tired the day before. And I wasn't in the mood for that yesterday since you were angry at me. So..."

"Now that you mention it. It's actually true," finally, Houki smiled a little. then she walked into the bathroom.

* * *

The following day, after school, Shirou stayed back to discuss his new room assignment and to ask her some questions about his new roommate with Chifuyu - Orimura Ichika.

"Here's your new key," Chifuyu gave the key to Shirou after taking it out from her bag. "Your new room number is 2009."

"Yeah, thank you, Orimura-sensei," said Shirou while trying to suppress a yawn.

"What's wrong?" asked Chifuyu. "Did you stay up late to 'say goodbye' to Shinonono last night?" She added mockingly.

"Actually, yes, we did stay up late yesterday," Shirou answered. That made the teacher's eyebrow shoot up.

"Ah no. It wasn't like what you are thinking," Seeing her reaction, Shirou quickly waved his hands. "We kind of had a big party last night. So it took a long time to clean up. The cooking part was time consuming too."

_It was totally worth it though,_ he added silently. Houki absolutely loved every dish he made. And that fact made Shirou very proud and happy.

"I see," Chifuyu nodded. Then she glared at him. "You are lucky. If you ever did something inappropriate inside the dorm under my supervision, you would regret it deeply."

"If I had tried something, Houki would've killed me with her bokken before you got the chance." Shirou grinned.

"Somehow, I doubt that," Chifuyu snorted.

"And I don't," said Shirou as he put the new key into his pocket. "By the way, sensei. Can I ask you some questions?"

"Sure," not looking up, she answered while putting some of the papers on her desk into the bag she was carrying. "What about?"

"It's about your brother," Shirou told her.

"That idiot Ichika?" Chifuyu asked in an indifferent voice. "Why do you want to know about him?"

"Well...I'm curious," he said truthfully. "Do you know how were me and him able to activate the I.S? I mean, we are the only two male pilots in the world after all."

"The only two known male pilots," she corrected him, still not looking up. "And no. I've been looking into that matter since the day you two activated those test I.S. But nothing comes up."

_So there's still the possibility that he used the same method as I did,_ Shirou remarked in his mind. _But wait..._

"Eh...Orimura-sensei..., he asked. "From what you said. Does that mean you knew from the start that there were two boys that activated the I.S on that day?"

This time, Chifuyu stopped with the papers and looked up at Shirou. "Yes, I did. What about it?"

"Well, it's just that on my first day, you told me that the reason I got my personal I.S was because I was the only male pilot in the world. So I'm just wondering..."

"Ah. About that," Chifuyu sighed. She then immediately came back with the papers on her desk. "It was nothing special. I just didn't think I had to tell you about my family."

"I see..." Shirou didn't think that was everything. But it wasn't the most important thing right now. "Well, that aside. How's Ichika? I mean, how's he as a person?" Then he added. "I know I can figure that out by myself. I'm going to live with him after all. But I just want to hear from the one who's closest with him, you know."

"Well," Finally Chifuyu was done with her papers, and was now standing up straight. "To sum it up, he's an idiot."

"And...?" Shirou asked. There was no way that could be everything she had to say about her own brother.

"That's it. He's an idiot," she repeated flatly.

"Seriously?"

"Seriously," Chifuyu replied in a serious voice.

"But...but..." Shirou stuttered. "You are kidding, right?"

"Do I look like I'm kidding?" Chifuyu glared at him. But after seeing his reaction, she snorted. "Don't worry. Ichika's a good kid. He may be a bit dull. But he's a good friend, a brave and confident boy."

"That confidence sometimes is the reason making him do stupid things though," she murmured the last part.

"You know, sensei," Shirou smirked seeing his teacher talking about her little brother. "You sounded just like Fuji-nee when she's..."

"Talking about you I assume?" Chifuyu cut him off, sighing. "Yeah, we may be similar at that point. We both have idiot brothers to look after."

"Maybe," Shirou agreed. "Well, that's everything. Thank you for answering my questions. I think I should come back to the dorm and start moving my stuffs to the new room."

"Yeah, you should," she nodded. "I guess it's time for me to go as well. See you tomorrow, Emiya-kun."

"See you later, Orimura-sensei."

With that, Chifuyu walked out of the classroom. But then as if remembered something, she turned back.

"Oh and one more thing. Ichika will come and help you move later. It's a chance for you guys to get to know each other, okay?"

"Ah, yes, thank you, Orimura-sensei," Shirou replied.

"That's all. See you later, Emiya-kun."

Chifuyu then left. Shirou also started making his way back to the dorm.

"Well then, let's hurry up," he murmured, following the teacher. "There's still enough time to have dinner with Houki before I start moving my stuff."

* * *

After dinner, Shirou was now checking for the last time everything he needed to move to his new room, while Houki was doing the dishes.

"You sure you didn't forget anything?" She asked from the kitchen.

"Yeah, that's everything," answered Shirou after looking through things once again. "The only things that I took out were just some clothes, my tooth brush, napkin, and towel. And I've got them all here," then he closed his luggage bag. "All done, do you need any help with the dishes?"

"No it's okay," said Houki without looking back. "I'm also almost done here. So Ichika is coming down here to help you move?"

"Yeah," Shirou told her, dropping himself onto his bed. "I think Orimura-sensei asked him to. That's alright, isn't it? If he comes here then you can see him too."

"That's right," replied Houki. "I haven't seen him in years, you know."

Shirou couldn't see his friend's face right now since he was lying down. But from the tone of her voice, he could say that she was happy.

"Well, he could be here any minute now," he said.

After that, neither of them said anything to each other. During the silence, Shirou started to sink into his own thoughts

_For now I guess I could assume that Ichika is a decent guy,_ he remembered about the conversation with Chifuyu in the afternoon. _But I still need to know if he's an magus or not._

At the moment, Shirou still didn't know just how he was going to pull that off. Things would be much easier if he just got to know the guy first, before attempting to figure more about what was bothering him.

Suddenly there was a knock on the door.

"That must be Ichika," Houki said from the kitchen,

"I'll get it," Shirou told her as he got up from his bed, went to the door and opened it. It was indeed the new transfer student.

"Uhm... Good evening," the boy looked around the room. He seemed to be a bit nervous. "Chifuyu-nee told me to come and help you with your luggage."

"Ah , yes," Shirou smiled. "Thank you. I'm already done with the packing. But please come in so we can have a cup of tea before getting to work. What do you say, Orimura-kun?" He politely offered.

"Oh...Sure," Ichika accepted and came in. "By the way, you can call me Ichika if you want. You know, it's less confusing that way."

"Since it's like that, please feel free to call me Shirou," said Shirou as the two boys got back to the kitchen. Inside, Houki had already finished with the dishes and prepared the tea.

"Good evening, Houki," said Ichika when he saw the girl. "It's been years since we last saw each other, right? How are you?"

"I'm doing fine," she answered as all three of them sat down around the table. "I was really surprised when I saw you yesterday morning, you know."

"Me too," the boy nodded. "Who would've thought that I would see you again here. By the way, congratulations on the international kendo championship. That was amazing."

"Thank you. It was no big deal," Houki looked down, blushed a little. "Actually Shirou and I had a celebration party for that yesterday. I'm sorry we didn't invite you."

"Don't worry about that," Ichika waved his hand. "To be honest, I had a bit of trouble dealing with my temporary roommate last night. Nishino-san from class two, you know her?" Then he grimaced, no doubt remembering some unpleasant memories. "She kind of freaked me out a bit."

"I can see what you mean," Shirou nodded sympathetically. "The girls here are...hard to deal with."

Then he looked up and saw Houki glaring at him. He quickly explained. "You see, I wasn't talking about you" - _not entirely – "_But you have to admit that they are somehow clueless when it comes to boys. Some of them forget to be embarrassed."

"That's totally what I was talking about," agreed Ichika as the two guys sighed in unison.

"Well, anyway," Shirou immediately continued after noticing the glare Houki was giving him had become sharper. "Houki is different. She and I really had a good time during the days that I stay here. So... Thank you, Houki. You really helped me a lot getting used to the new life here."

"Eh...Ah..." Houki stuttered as her face flushed once again. "Well, it was new for me too. So we both helped each other. I guess I should thank you too, Shirou."

"You are welcome," replied Shirou with a little smile.

"Wow, that's nice," Ichika sounded impressed. "You guys are really close, huh?"

"Actually," Shirou proposed. "Now that you are here. We can all help each other out. Is that right, Houki?"

"If...If you say so," answered Houki with a still red face. Then she turned her head away, not looking at the boys. "In that case, I...I will allow Ichika to have breakfast here with us."

"So she says," Shirou turned to Ichika with a grin. "Aren't you glad, Ichika?"

"I am," the boy smiled brightly. "Thank you very much, Houki. It's good to have friends around."

"No...No problem," said Houki still with her head facing the other way.

"Well. It's getting late," Shirou stood up. "Ichika, I think we should start moving if we want it to be done before midnight."

"You're right," Ichika agreed. "Thanks for the tea, Houki. It's really good."

"That's good to know," Houki said quickly as she stood up and started to clean the table. She was embarrassed, but Shirou knew that seeing both of her childhood friends here made the girl happy.

"Then we should start with those big suitcases over there," He pointed over to his bed. "There are only two of them."

"Ahh... Is there anything I can help you with?" Asked Houki hesitantly from behind.

Hearing their friend's proposal, two boys both shared a look with each other. Then Ichika turned back and said.

"It's okay. We can handle it ourselves. Thank you, Houki."

"Don't be like that, at least let me help with the small bags," Houki insisted. Then without waiting for the guys' answer, she quickly went over and picked up a couple of plastic bags.

"Well, looks like it's been decided," Shirou murmured to Ichika. "It's okay to let her help us a little, right?"

"Sure. It's not a problem anyway," the boy replied, scratching his head.

After that, all three of them were busy moving stuffs around and talked about various things. There was actually not that many things. So after thirty minutes, all of Shirou's luggage had been moved to his new room.

"Well, goodbye then, Houki," said Shirou as he and Houki stood in front of her room. "Thank you for letting me stay here for the last few days."

"You're welcome," she smiled. "It's getting late, you should come back to your room now. And don't forget what you said."

"I won't," he told her. "It's fun cooking meals for us, so I will come here in meal times."

"It's all good then," said Houki as she walked through the door. "Goodnight, Shirou. And say goodnight to Ichika for me."

"You got it," Shirou nodded. "Goodnight Houki."

Then he turned around to go back to his new room. It was a long day, and what he needed right now was a good night's sleep. Everything else could wait until tomorrow.

**End of chapter 3.**


	4. Chapter 4: Busted

**Author's note:**

**Chapter 4 is finally here, sorry for the long delay.**

**Thanks all of you for your reviews and thoughts. As Luna's Meow has already mentioned, having two protagonists can be tricky. But well, I enjoy it, so no problem there.**

**Now to the chapter itself, the first part is about characters' interactions with another character got introduced, while there are some plot advance, they are not worth mentioning at this part.**

**But the last part I believe is the beginning of my story's diversion from canon storyline. So please read and enjoy.**

**P/S: This is the edited version of this chapter. But only the last scene of it was changed due to the serious lack of logic and OOC. Thank you all for pointing that out.**

* * *

The next morning, Shirou and Ichika came down together to Houki's room for breakfast.

"How did you sleep last night?" Asked Ichika while stretching his arms as the two boys walked along the hallway.

"It's good," Shirou simply nodded. Not having a girl his age around when he was sleeping indeed did help him to sleep better.

"So where did you go earlier?" The dark haired boy continued. "I saw you woke up about an hour ago and left the room."

"It's just for my morning practice routine," Shirou waved his hand as they reached Houki's room. "It's my habit from a long time ago. Sorry that I woke you up," he then knocked on the door a few times.

"I see..." Ichika looked at him thoughtfully. "Say, can I join you for that practice from tomorrow? Chifuyu-nee also used to make me train like that. But I kind of ditched it once she stopped coming home frequently."

Shirou was about to ask him something else. But the door in front of them opened, and Houki in her pajama stepped out. In the end, he decided to tell the boy that he didn't mind, before turning over to his childhood friend.

"Good morning, Houki," he and Ichika said in unison.

"Eh...ah...good morning," the girl replied, it seemed like she still hadn't woken up completely. But just a moment later, Houki suddenly realized that she was standing in front of two boys as her face started to flush up. She stuttered and waved her hands in embarrassment.

"Wait...wait a minute. I need to change my clothes...and wash my face."

The girl then slammed the door shut in front of them. From inside, the sound of her hastily moving around and knocked over something could be heard.

"So..." After a moment of silence, Ichika turned to Shirou and asked, pretended like nothing happened. "You are gonna be our chef today?"

"Yup," He smiled awkwardly, staring at the door. "Since I promised to cook for her. So yeah..."

_Well, she's not as bad as Rin when it comes to waking up early in the morning though, _Shirou chuckled softly as he remembered about his prodigy friend's morning habit.

"Is Houki usually like that when you two were still staying together?" Finally, the other boy couldn't bear it anymore and spoke his mind. Unlucky for him, Houki had already back, and she opened the door just in time when he said that question out loud.

"No, I'm not. You idiot," she glared at Ichika, still blushing a little.

Startled by her voice, the boy jumped back, then looked at his childhood friend while scratching his head.

"Well, I'm just curious..." He murmured.

With a loud 'Hmp', Houki turned around and walked inside. Right now, she had already tied her hair up in a ponytail and put on the I.S academy's uniform. Shirou and Ichika followed right after her.

"Let me go and prepare tea," she said while heading over to the cupboard.

"Sure," Shirou nodded. "I will start cooking then. You can sit there and wait for a bit, Ichika."

"Eh...But..." The boy hesitated, apparently not feeling very comfortable letting his friends do all the works.

"You are the guest today," Shirou pushed him into a chair before the boy got the chance to retort. He then walked over to the fridge and started taking out the ingredients.

"Looks like we bought a little too much yesterday," Houki's voice came from behind. "With this we won't have to go shopping for awhile."

"Yeah, for groceries," Shirou replied. "I still have a cell phone to buy though. Fuji-nee said that she would send me money for one. But that's before the big revelation about us living together..." He sighed tiredly. Nevertheless, it was still a good idea to check out his bank account later. Just in case Taiga still did as she said.

"Well, maybe you shouldn't hide it from her in the first place," Houki scolded him as she brought the teapot and a set of cups to the dining table. "Maybe you wouldn't have to move out if that was the case..." The girl then murmured.

"You are right, Houki," he shrugged his shoulders. "I have no excuse."

"What's done is done, guys," Ichika suddenly spoke up, obviously trying to lighten the mood. "At least you two are still able to have meals together."

"Guess it can't be helped," Houki sighed deeply as she also sat down onto a chair. "You better make an amazing breakfast to make up for it."

"Yes,ma-am," Shirou grinned and started frying the bacons. Despite what she said, it looked like that girl was in a good mood today with both of her childhood friends around.

"You two really are a good couple. I'm amazed," from his seat, Ichika said with his eyes dashing between the grinning Shirou and Houki, who was now also smiled a little.

Unsurprisingly, the boy's words had an immediate effect. Upon hearing them, Houki almost choked on the tea she was drinking as her face turned bright red in an instant. While Shirou was just a bit short from falling face first onto the chopping board he was using.

"Wha...what are you talking about," waving her hands in panic, Houki quickly denied. "Me and him...we are not...like that. We are just friends. Right, just friends." She then nodded to herself as her face was still getting hotter and hotter. Right now, Shirou could almost see steam coming out from under her hair.

"Eh?..." The girl's reaction had made Ichika's jaw dropped open. "Is that true, Shirou?" He then turned over to the kitchen.

"Sadly, yes," putting one hand one the kitchen counter and the other one holding a knife on his hip, Shirou sighed. "Sorry for ruining your imagination, Ichika."

"And here I thought for sure, seeing how close you two are..." The boy looked down disappointedly at his own tea cup. "I would be so happy for you guys, you know?" Suddenly, he perked up and smiled brightly. "But you know what, Shirou? You and Houki will make a great couple. Don't you think so too, Hou... Where are you, Houki?"

Shirou just silently pointed behind the poor boy. Followed his finger, Ichika looked back only to see an enraged Houki, whose face was now as flushed as it could be from embarrassment and anger. The girl had once again taken her bokken out from wherever it was, and was in middle of swinging it down at her confused target.

'What are you...' were the lasts words that came out of Ichika's mouth before the bokken kissed his head with a loud 'Thud!'. The boy then fainted on the spot.

_You just don't know when to stop, do you?_ Slowly shook his head and facepalmed himself, Shirou decided that it was the best for him to just keep his silence and go back to cooking breakfast.

* * *

"You didn't have to hit me that hard, you know?" Rubbing the sore spot on the top of his head, Ichika complained while him, Shirou and Houki heading to class.

"It was because you said some stupid things," said Houki with her head turned away, still blushing a little. "Besides, I've apologized already."

"But I was just telling the truth. You and Shirou are..." the boy then cut his sentence mid way after noticing the razor sharp glares that his childhood friend was giving him.

"Just let it go, man," Shirou murmured, patting his shoulder. "You lost."

"Fine," Ichika sighed reluctantly as they arrived to class One's classroom. "Okay, here we are."

After that, they returned to their own seats, Houki went over to her desk near the window, while Shirou and Ichika heading to theirs in the middle row.

Just as he sat down and put away his bag, Shirou noticed a familiar stare on his back.

_Again, eh? _Taking a glance behind, he could see Cecilia waving and smiling brightly at him from the back of the class.

_She has done that without rest during yesterday's class. Doesn't she even get tired?_ Grimacing at the thought, Shirou then turned ahead. But it was getting harder and harder to ignore that blond. So he knew that he would have to talk to her sooner or later. However, how to do so without revealing his secrets was still a big question floating around in his mind.

"Why is that girl staring at you so intensely like that, Shirou," next to him, Ichika whispered. "Is she Cecilia Alcott. The one that people said you were two-timing with?"

"If you know that already, why bother asking," He grunted. "Also, I'm not two-timing anyone. Hell, I don't even have a girlfriend to begin with."

"Alright, I'm just checking," the other boy shrugged. "I still don't know everyone in this class, you know."

"Neither do I," Shirou sighed as the classroom door slide open and Yamada walked in.

"Good morning everyone," the petite teacher said energetically.

"Good morning, Yamada-sensei," the entire class replied in unison.

"Well, seeing that everybody is here," Yamada continued after taking a look around the classroom. "I have an announcement to make."

"Is it another transfer student, sensei?" A twin tail girl whose name Shirou didn't remember instantly raised her hand.

Her question seemed to excite the others, as they all started to voice their questions one after another.

"Is that another boy, sensei?"

"Why are there so many transfer students lately?"

Shirou could only facepalm himself once again seeing the vice-homeroom teacher hopelessly trying to control the crowd only to be buried by her students' words.

"Now, now, calm down, everyone," frantically waved her hands to keep the noise down, Yamada then quickly explained. "It's not a new transfer student."

Her explanation seemed to have an opposite effect of what she expected. It only made the girls even more curious, thus another wave of questions started coming endlessly. In the middle of that chaos, Yamada started to tear up.

At this point, Shirou saw that he couldn't sit still anymore. It seemed like Chifuyu had some businesses and couldn't come today, while Yamada alone wasn't enough to handle all those excited students.

"Alright, girls. Can you stop for a moment?" Stood up straight, he then said out loud. However, to his surprise, it wasn't only his voice that said so.

Next to him, Ichika had also stood up, and was now staring at him with widened eyes. And from the corner of his eyes, Shirou could see that Cecilia was doing the same at the back row of the class. The three then started staring at each other in an awkward silence.

"Erm... This is awkward..." As expected of Ichika, he was the first one to state the obvious while scratching his head. Completely ignored him, Shirou and Cecilia then sat back down without saying anything. At least that little scene had helped. All the girls were now too shocked to keep bombarding Yamada with questions.

"Eh... Thank you," Yamada then said embarrassedly after looking at them in surprise. "Then is it okay for me to continue now?"

"Yes, please, sensei," Ichika replied cheerfully as he sat down.

"Alright," cleared her throat, the teacher then started. "What I want to say is that, our first period today will be used for class president election. The one who got elected with be participating in the Class Tournament next week."

Her words immediately started another questioning session. However this time, the girls only whispered between themselves instead of attacking the poor teacher in unison.

"Well, since we have used a lot of time already, I would like to start right away," sighed in relief, Yamada then stood in front of the black board. "Anyone got any suggestion?"

"I elect Cecilia-san," the girl with the twin tail said, and some others around her nodded in agreement.

"Very well, Alcott-san then," the teacher wrote Cecilia's name on the board before turning back. "Anyone else?"

This time, it was the blond herself stood up.

"Sensei, I would like to elect Emiya-san," she smiled sweetly. Shirou immediately froze after hearing that sentence.

_No, it won't be good if I get anymore attention than this, _hastily standing up, he then told the entire class.

"I think Alcott-san is the better choice. She won against me at the duel after all," he then paused a little. "We would have more chance to win the tournament with her as our representative."

Looking around, it was like a heavy load lifted off of his back when he saw many people agreed with him.

"My, my, but I'm a foreigner," however, Cecilia refused to give up. "Isn't it better to have a Japanese as your class rep? He is a male pilot on top of that. Also..." she then looked at Shirou mischievously. "I barely won against him in our fight. If his strike hit, I would be the loser instead."

Shirou paled as the majority of his classmates nodded at her words. Even Yamada had already started to put his name up.

_Wait a minute...male pilot...,_ suddenly, an idea popped up inside his head. Shirou then quickly raised his hand.

"Yamada-sensei," he called. "I would like to elect Ichika-san."

"What? Why me?" On the seat next to him, Ichika's eyes once again widened in surprise. "What are you talking about, Shirou?"

_I'm sorry, Ichika. I will make it up for you later,_ gritted his teeth, Shirou then continued.

"He's also a Japanese male pilot," he pointed at the boy next to him. "And even though we have never seen him fight. He's Orimura-sensei's little brother. I'm sure that everybody here know how good she is."

"But..." Ichika retorted. "But I don't have a personal I.S like you two. So me practicing in the Tournament is a little..."

"Actually, about that," Yamada interrupted him. "There has already been a personal I.S prepared for you, Ichika-san. It should be here the day after tomorrow."

"Well, then I have no objection," the boy shrugged. "But I will need someone to help me get used to it before next week."

_Great job, Yamada-sensei,_ making a victory pose in his mind, Shirou then asked his class once again while trying to keep his normal face.

"Erm... So how about that, everyone?"

It looked like most of the girl agreed with him. Except for the blond, she was now grimacing in annoyance.

"So we have three name here," said the teacher as she bent down and took out a box from under the table. "We will start voting. And the one who get the most vote will become the class rep. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sensei," the students replied as they started casting their vote. It took almost fifteen minutes for every single ballot to be dropped into the box, and another fifteen for the vote to be counted.

The final result had made Shirou almost jumped in joy, while Cecilia sulkily looking away.

Ichika had won the election with eleven votes. Shirou and the blond both got nine votes.

"Well, congratulation," smiled happily, he then patted the other boy's shoulder. "You are now our class rep."

"Thank you, Shirou," Ichika nodded. "It was thanks to you. But why did you elect me? I mean, you could've become class rep yourself."

"Well," Shiroy shrugged. "I'm not fit for that position. And I think you will do a much more better job than me."

"If you say so," the boy smiled. "Then can you help me with my I.S when it arrive?"

"Absolutely," he nodded. "It would also help me to practice a little."

"Okay, attention please," from the black board, Yamada said. "Now that the election is over. It's time for us to start studying."

After that, the rest of the classes passed normally without any notable event.

* * *

That afternoon, after school had ended, Shirou decided to make his way to the academy's ATM to check his bank account. He was alone since Houki had a meeting with her kendo club, while Ichika going around to see if there was any club that he could join.

_With all those girls, I doubt that he would be able to find one that he enjoys, _chuckled softly, he then started heading to the mall, it was most likely to have an ATM placed there.

However, he was stopped by someone from behind.

"Excuse me?" It was a girl's voice. "Can you please show me the way to the dormitory? I'm a new student, so..."

Turned around, Shirou then saw the asker. She was a rather cute short girl with light brown twin tail and green eyes.

_Chinese?_ Raised an eyebrow at her appearance, he then answered.

"Well, you go straight this way," he pointed behind him. "Then turn left when you hit a fork. And right at the third turn and you should be there. Also..."

"Yes?" The girl looked up at him.

"Erm... Do you need help with all that luggage?" Shirou offered. It was true that she was carrying too much for someone as petite as herself.

"Ah..." She scratched her head. "If it isn't too much trouble then... But I probably can handle them myself."

"Well, it isn't," he smiled gently, then came over and took a big bag of her back while holding onto one of her trunks. "Let's go then. I will lead you there."

"Thank you very much," she smiled brightly. "My name is Huang Lingyin. It's nice to meet you."

"Likewise. I'm Shirou Emiya," Shirou nodded. "So Lingyin-san..."

"Oh, it's okay to call me Ling," the girl waved her free hand. "So what is it? Emiya-san?"

"Oh, okay, Ling-san," he looked back at her. "You've just arrived today? Your Japanese is very good. I'm surprised."

"Actually I've been in Japan since I was a kid," Ling smiled lightly. "But my house isn't here on Tokyo. So you can also say that I've just arrived. Are you one of the male pilots that have been appearing all over the news lately?" She then looked at him with curious eyes.

"Unfortunately, yes," Shirou smiled bitterly. "Not that it's a very good thing though."

"Well, being famous can be a bother sometimes," the girl nodded understandingly. "So do you know the other, Ichika Orimura?"

"I do. In fact, that guy's my roommate. Why do you ask?" He replied without looking back.

"Actually..." behind him, Ling started fidgeting. "He's my childhood friend. And I haven't seen him in a long time. So..."

Another one, eh? Shirou slowly shook his head. How many childhood girl friend do you have, Ichika?

"In that case," he smiled at her. "After putting away your things, you can come by our room and wait for him. He should come back soon."

"Really?" The girl beamed up brightly. "Thank you, Emiya-san."

"No problem," Shirou then asked as they reached the dorm. "What's your room number, Ling-san?"

"The key says 1025," she answered after looking at the key taken out from her pocket. "Should be on first floor, right?"

"Actually, it's second floor," he raised an eyebrow. "The first were reserved for the manager and supervisor's offices, as well as a small gym and a common room.

"I see," the girl nodded. "Is there anything wrong? You looked surprised when I told you my room number."

"Ah, it's nothing big," quickly waved his hand, Shirou said. "Actually, it had been my room as well until yesterday, before I moved in with Ichika."

"Ehhh?" Ling's eyes widened in shock. "But I heard there would be another girl in there as well. So does that mean..."

"Yeah, Shinonono Houki - my childhood friend," he sighed deeply. "I've been her roommate for two days before that guy transferred in. Nothing happened between us, of course," the boy then hastily added after seeing the look that Ling was giving him.

"I think that you two will get along great," Shirou continued. "After all, that girl is also a childhood friend of Ichika. Here we are, room 1025."

After arriving at his old room, he turned around to look at the girl. However, to his surprise, Ling had stopped walking mid way, and was now squinting her eyes in what he guessed was annoyance.

"What did you just say?" She murmured. "Ichika has another childhood friend here, who is happen to be my roommate?"

"Basically, yeah," Shirou answered, looking at her cautiously. "Is everything alright, Ling-san?"

As if suddenly realized what kind of face she was making, Ling frantically perked up, scratching her head and laughed awkwardly.

"Ahaha, it was nothing, Emiya-san," she then nodded to herself. "Right, another childhood friend is no problem. I still have his promise..."

"Well, as long as you are fine..." he said hesitantly.

"Ah yes, thank you, Emiya-san," she then walked toward the door while smiling brightly at him. "I can take care of them from here. And I will drop by your room later. What's your room number?"

"It's 2009, right upstairs," Shirou said, pointing upward. "Then see you later, Ling-san. I will go back first,"

"Sure," the girl nodded without looking at him. "I will be there soon."

Turned around and returned to his room, he then sighed and slowly shook his head.

_That girl looks like she won't be easy to deal with. Good luck, Ichika, with whatever you promised her._

* * *

Houki was completely exhausted. What she was called in for wasn't a meeting like she was told earlier, but a training session in order to prepare for the inter-school tournament two months from now.

_And now I have to practice four times a week after school, _she sighed tiredly. It wasn't like she didn't enjoy doing kendo. But right now, with Shirou coming over every evening, Houki didn't want to come home too late drenched in sweat when he had already there.

_Well, it can't be helped, I will find a way to solve that later, _shaking her head, she then remembered that there would be a new student moving in with her today.

_I better come back soon to see if she need any help,_ picked up the pace a little, Houki then quickly headed back to her room.

However, when she arrived to the room, there was no one else there beside a set of bags and trunks that had already been placed neatly on the empty bed opposite of hers. After looking around and in the bathroom, Houki guessed that the new student had gone out. She then decided that since Shirou hadn't been here yet, it was better to take a quick shower.

Standing inside the bathroom and let the warm water clean her body. Houki started to think about the events that morning.

_Ichika said we would make a great couple..._ Her face instantly flushed as the boy's words flashed in her mind. To be honest, she had been regretting it ever since after denying it too strongly. Despite having overreacted and hit Ichika with her bokken, deep inside, Houki still felt a bit happy inside hearing her childhood friend said that about her and Shirou.

_I wonder what he mean when he told Ichika 'Sadly'... _the memory made her face got even redder than it already was.

_What am I thinking? I don't even know if I love him or not... _quickly shook her head, Houki then looked at her own deeply blushing face in the mirror. Suddenly, her chest tightened.

_Even if I do..._ she though, feeling her eyes teared up a bit. _Even if that's the case, there's still so many secrets around Shirou. What if my feeling change after finding out about them? It's too uncertain..._

But it didn't change the fact that Houki wanted to get closer to Shirou at the moment. However, it may be too hard for her to figure him out by herself. She really needed some helps.

_How about Cecilia Alcott? _Houki wondered, but quickly rejected the idea. _That blond's also interested in Shirou. Who knows what she would do after finding out his secrets?_

_Orimura-sensei? _The second possibility popped up. But it wasn't such a good idea either. Houki knew that Chifuyu was curious about the boy. But to bring something like that to the scariest teacher who just teased her just the other day? She shivered all over just thinking about what would happened if she really told Chifuyu about that.

_Then all that left is Ichika,_ she sighed. He might be a bit dumb and no doubt wasn't the best information gatherer out there. But at least that boy was someone Houki could put her trust in.

_He's also a boy and Shirou's roommate. Maybe it would be better for him to share his secrets if it was with another boy? _Nodded to herself, Houki then cheered up a little. _And if that Ichika dares to tease me, my bokken will teach him a lesson just like this morning._

After deciding that she would ask Ichika about that later, Houki went to dry herself and get dressed. Just as she finished putting on her clothes, there were some knocks on the door.

_Must be Shirou. I managed to finish everything just in time,_ smiled satisfyingly, Houki then walked out of the bathroom.

* * *

Cecilia Alcott was extremely disappointed. Originally, in the election that morning, she had intended to push Shirou into the position of class representative. However, the boy had managed to dodge the bullet by using his friend - Ichika - as a shield.

_If only that guy didn't move in class One...,_ she sighed deeply. And here I am, hoping to see more of Shirou's abilities once he was in the Tournament.

But of course, such a small bump in the road wasn't enough to keep someone like Cecilia from getting what she wanted. If she couldn't archive anything just by observing Shirou from afar, then all she had to do was to get closer to the boy and his friends, then confront him directly

Obviously, that method had failed the first time Cecilia tried it. But it was just because of some unnecessary interferences and the boy's own luck. Now, if she were to go and talk to him one-on-one in his own room, there would be more chance to success.

_If I'm not wrong, then Shirou has just moved in with Ichika-san since yesterday,_ and since Ichika's room was just five rooms away from hers, it would be even more convenient to visit whenever she wanted.

With that in mind, Cecilia walked out of her room. However, when she was still in the middle of the hallway, the door of room 2009 suddenly bursted open with a loud 'Bang!'. And from inside dashed out a short girl with light brown twin tail. From the looks on her face, that girl was now very furious.

_What was that about? _Cecilia wondered. _Another girl who's got interest in Shirou?_ She then shrugged like nothing happened. _Well, even if he's really such a playboy and bring some of them into his room. It isn't my business and isn't what I wanted to know._

Finally, she reached the boy's room and knocked on the door a few times. However, it wasn't Shirou who answered.

"Good evening... Erm... How may I help you?" It was Ichika. The dark haired boy was now wearing a troubled face. And he was clearly disappointed when the one who knocked was Cecilia.

"What happened? A fight with your girlfriend? And it's only your third day here too..." For a moment, she forgot the real intention of her coming here and decided to tease the boy a little.

"Not my girlfriend," Ichika sighed, waving his hand. "But yeah, we had a bit of a fight. I have no idea what I did though," he murmured.

"Well, in any case, you better make up with her soon," Cecilia smiled gently at him.

"I know," he scratched his head. "But it isn't gonna be easy. Especially after she said she was going to crush me in the Tournament next week."

"What?" Her eyes widened hearing Ichika's words. "She's a representative?"

"Yeah, class Two's," the boy nodded.

Immediately after that, Cecilia grabbed his shoulders and looked straight into his eyes.

"Then forget making up with her," she said solemnly while glaring at him. "Crush her and bring us victory."

"But...but..." Ichika tried to get away, obviously being shocked from her sudden action. "She's also Chinese representative. I don't think I can

win against someone that strong..."

Finally, Cecilia release him then sighed.

_This wouldn't have happened if that guy had become our class rep instead,_ she then told the boy in the most serious tone that she could pull off.

"Ask Emiya-san to help you train. If necessary, I will help as well. You have to win the Tournament at all cost, got it?"

"Ye...yes, ma-am," still in shock, Ichika replied.

"Well, fine," she sighed again. "Then can you please tell me where Emiya-san is? It looks like he isn't in the room."

"Ah, right," the boy smiled a little after calming himself down. "Shirou left awhile ago to have dinner at Houki's room, room 1025. You can see him there."

"I see, thank you very much," smiled back at him. Cecilia then started making her way downstairs.

* * *

Walking through her room as quickly as she could, Houki then opened the door.

However, standing there wasn't Shirou, who she was waiting for. Instead, on the other side of the door was a girl with light brown twin tails and green eyes. And clearly, that girl was now seriously pissed off with her face flushed angrily while her clenched fists were turning white from the force and shaking uncontrollably.

"Erm... Excuse me..." Houki asked hesitantly. "Are you...by any chance...my new roommate?"

Without answering, the girl just dashed into the room and threw herself onto the empty bed.

"Can you believe him?" She started grunting. "To forget our promise just like that!"

"Eh... Who is 'him' that you are talking about?" Closed the door behind her back, Houki then walked slowly toward the stranger with a puzzled face.

"Ichika," the other girl said angrily. "You know him, right? After all, you are his 'first' childhood friend. And I'm just 'second'."

"You are also Ichika's childhood friend?" Raised an eyebrow, Houki sat down on the side of the bed, next to the sulky girl. "Well, what did he promise you? What an idiot, forget something important that easily..."

"You are right, he's an idiot," sprang up into a sitting position. The strange girl then started fidgeting. "Well...he kind of promised me that...he will be...with me...if I become a better cook." She said while looking triumphantly at Houki, despite her face was now as red as a tomato. Obviously, this blush had no trace of the earlier anger.

"You...you like him?" Houki's eyes widened. She then smiled gently. "Good for him. But still, to forget something like that..."

"You aren't jealous?" To her surprise, the twin tail girl asked.

"Why?" She asked. "It's not like I like him or something."

"You are not?" Once again, the other girl continued in disbelief.

"No," Houki shook her head, smiling. "I mean he's a good boy. And he helped me a lot when we were kids. But no, I just don't see him that way."

"Wow..." the other girl then stared at her for awhile. But after that, she smiled and put out her hand. "Nice to meet you, I'm Huang Lingyin. But you can call me Ling. You must be Houki-san. Emiya-san told me your name earlier."

"You've met Shirou?" Taking her new roommate's hand, Houki asked.

"Yeah," Ling nodded happily. "He showed me the way and helped me to bring my luggage here."

"That sounds like him," Houki chuckled softly. "So, Ling-san, do you need help unpacking your stuffs? Or you want to take a shower first? Because Shirou is going to come here soon for dinner."

"Really?" Ling beamed up. Her voice was now full of energy. "He's coming here? You two must be a couple then. And there he was, telling me that nothing happened."

"Eh...What?" Just like in the morning, Houki's face blushed instantly. "No, we aren't like that, you see..."

"But you do like him, don't you?" Ling grinned mischievously. "Don't deny it, I can see because I have someone I like as well."

"It... It isn't exactly 'like', but..." Houki stuttered in panic. Her face was now flushed deeply.

"But you have feelings for him. Is that it?" The other girl pressed while patting her shoulder. "Don't worry, if that's the case, I will cheer for you and we are going make that guy yours."

"Really?" Houki perked up, extremely embarrassed.

"Yup, yup. Just leave it to me," Ling smiled brightly while getting off the bed. "Now excuse me, I need to go to the bathroom a bit."

_So does that mean I can ask her to help me figure out more about Shirou as well? _Houki wondered, using her hands to cover her burning face. But right then, there were some other knocks on the door.

_Now? Such bad timing, _still flushed, Houki hastily jump of the bed and made her way to the door, almost knocked off the umbrella near the entrance in the progress.

"What took you so long?" She asked while opening the door. However, this time, it still wasn't Shirou who knocked.

"What are you doing here?" Houki squinted her eyes and asked when she recognized the other person.

* * *

One hour earlier.

_What a weird girl, she looks like she comes to this school only because of Ichika, _Shirou sighed as he walked along the dorm's hallway, heading toward the entrance. Since it wasn't that late, and Houki should've just come back from her club, he decided to give his childhood friend a little time for herself before coming over for dinner.

Anyway, earlier, Ling had cone to visit a little sooner than expected, so the two of them had had some tea and chatted for awhile. Overall, she was a good energetic girl with a bit of competitive streak. But what made her stood out the most was that she really liked Ichika. From what the girl said, that boy had protected her from the bullies when they were in middle school.

After about fifteen minutes, Ichika finally came back. So Shirou excused himself and got out of the room to leave the two alone. There was no doubt that they had many things to say to each other, and he didn't want to spoil the mood with his presence

_At least the one she's interested in isn't me,_ nodded to himself, he then decided to head to the mall. Because of his encounter with Ling that afternoon, he hadn't been able to check his bank account yet.

"Let's see..." Once reached the mall, Shirou stepped in the nearest ATM and inserted his student card, which also served as a credit card, bank account card and ATM card at the same time.

After following the instruction on the machine's screen, and waited while the information was being retrieved, he let out a sigh of relief. Despite being angry at him for hiding things from her, Taiga had still sent him the money for a cell phone.

_Well, since I don't know much about such thing. Maybe I will ask Houki to go shopping with me again later, _completing the transaction without withdrawing any money, Shirou then stepped out of the ATM booth after taking back his card.

It was right after he set his foot outside that a strange smell invaded his nostrils. There was no mistake, that was the smell of prana, one that completely different from the metallic smell of the I.S that he used to.

_It's faint, but there's no doubt that it's here._ Following the trace of the foreign prana, Shirou then realized that he was now heading toward the I.S maintaining center, not the one that anyone could use in the stadium. But this one was only for the uses of the school staff, which was located separately, in the middle of a small forest on the compound. And the closer he got, the more it became clear that there were more than one source of prana, though they all have the same smell of animals.

_'Familiars'_ was the first though popped up in his mind. Not the super strong kind of familiar like the Servants. Instead, the ones that Shirou sensed here was the type that was used to spy on the summoner's target. And in this case, that target appeared to be the maintaining center.

_I wonder what they are up to,_ thought to himself, Shirou then activated his Magic Circuits and enhanced his eyes sight in order to find the familiars. Whatever their intention was, it wasn't a good thing to let the information about I.S to fall into a magus's hand. So right now, he was standing between two choices, either ignore that magus and keep his presence here hidden, or destroy the familiars, expose the fact that there was at least one magus on the school compound, in exchange for protecting whatever was going on in that room.

_Well, isn't it obvious,_ Shirou sighed, deciding on his path of action. If it was enough to get a magus's attention, it must be important. And if that information somehow ended up in the Mage Association's hand, a lot of people here would be in serious danger. Being the kind of person he was, Shirou refused to let that happen.

Follow the signal of his sight and the smell of prana, he finally spotted three strange crows, which were now resting between the trees surrounding the center. All of them were now looking through the building's windows.

_The first two should be easy,_ he noted. _The problem comes after that. If that magus knows, and he will definitely know, that his familiars are being destroyed, he will try to withdraw the rest, or worst, trying to get sight of the attacker. Since it's a given that he's linked his sight to the crows._

With that in mind, Shirou then started moving silently, trying to find a spot where he would be able to attack at least two of the crows at almost the same time.

In the end, he chose a big tree far away from the building with thick layers of leaves, which would help him to hide his presence later once he climbed it. Also, from the ground, Shirou could have sight of all three crows at once, a perfect sniping spot.

After getting into position, Shirou focused and murmured his trademark aria.

"Trace on."

He then started projecting two mundane arrows, which were enough to destroy that kind of familiar, then put them right next to him.

When the preparation had finished, a shiny black bow instantly appeared inside his hand. That was 'Shirou's bow', a tweaked version of Counter Guardian EMIYA's weapon. Needless to say, its attributes couldn't be compared to Archer's bow. But Shirou found that it suited him better than the other.

Raising his arm, he then projected another arrow into his empty hand, placed in on the bow, and began to reinforce his arm and shoulder muscles as much as he could since he would have to move them with really fast speed to be able to hit at least two targets.

Aiming at the furthest familiar, Shirou then release the arrow. Instantly after that, he grabbed one of the two in reserve and shoot it at the closest crow.

Didn't bother checking the result as he knew that they would hit, Shirou then tried to shoot the third one as fast as he could. However, the other magus seemed to have noticed the death of his familiars. The third crow quickly flew up and barely avoided the arrow.

_Just as expected, _he grimaced. Shirou then reinforced his legs and leapt onto the tree he was hiding behind, hid himself between the leaves while still following the scent of prana.

Once again, his guess was spot on. The crow didn't leave, and was now circling around trying to find him.

_He knows my previous position, _Shirou noted. _All that flying's just a distraction, that familiar should come here soon._

With that in mind, he dismissed the bow and the released arrows, then Traced Kanshou into his hand. It would be all over once the crow flew pass under his hiding spot.

After a few minutes of flying around between the trees, the crow finally headed to where he was.

_Here it comes,_ thought Shirou as the smell was getting stronger, and he finally caught sight of the familiar flying with insane speed.

As the crow got close to the tree he was hiding on, Shirou also jumped down, Kanshou held over his head with both hands. And with one decisive strike, his target had been cut cleanly into two and vanished into the air.

"Phew..." wiped his sweat, Shirou finally stood up straight and was about to dismissed the black sword. However, to his surprise, the scent still hadn't completely disappeared.

_Damn it, a fourth one? _He grimaced. It seemed like Shirou has somehow missed the presence of another familiar. It was most likely due to the fact that the two last crow stayed too close together, which screwed up his sense of smell.

Raised his sword in panic, Shirou then frantically following the trace of the final crow. But he was too late, it had gotten too close, and only with a turn around the tree ahead, his appearance would be exposed.

"Can't be helped," he grunted, angry at himself for the unnecessary carelessness. "At least the I.S's information won't be revealed too much."

Suddenly, the prana smell vanished. And quickly dashed far away in front of him was a shadow holding something like a sword. Even with Shirou's reinforced eyes, it was impossible to see who it was due to his or her way of moving while hiding behind the trees.

_Who was it? _He wondered. _Whoever that was, there is no doubt that that person has seen my face. But since he destroyed the familiar, is he on my side?_

_Let's get the hell out of here first, _though Shirou as he quickly dashed back to the mall. His mind right now was racing in worry about the mysterious magus as well as the shadow. But at least he could now somehow be relaxed a bit knowing that the shadow wouldn't harm him, as that person had passed many opportunities to do so in the forest.

_And my face wasn't exposed to the magus,_ he sighed in relief, then decided to come back to the dorm. There was no use fretting about what just happened anymore.

Ten minutes later, Shirou finally arrived at Houki's room. Took a deep breath to calm himself down, he then knocked on the door.

"It's open, come in," from inside came out Houki's voice. But somehow it sounded strange.

Pushed the door open hastily, Shirou dashed into the room, worrying that there might be something threatening his childhood friend. However, the scene was quite unexpected.

Houki was sitting at the dining table, her eyes squinted angrily. And on her sides were Ling and Cecilia, both of them were now looking at him and waved their hands.

"Welcome back, Emiya-san. What's the hurry?" The Chinese girl asked while smiling widely.

"We've been waiting for you for a long time, you know," the blond, on the other hand, greeted him with her playful wink.

"Eh?" Surprised, Shirou found himself stood dumbfounded for several seconds before being able to open his mouth again.

"Erm...Houki?" He looked at the girl. "I can understand why Ling-san is here. But Alcott-san too?"

Hearing his words, Houki quickly turned her head away sulkily, leaving him feeling wondered just what on Earth had happened that led to that situation.

* * *

From the balcony of the I.S maintaining center. Chifuyu was now silently drinking a cup of coffee while holding her own bokken.

Just awhile earlier, she was able to witness something unbelievable while patrolling the surrounding forest.

It wasn't something she had to do daily. It was just because today, an important operation had been going on inside the center - the final adjustment and ability testing of her brother's personal I.S. Given what core that machine had in it, there would no doubt be a lot of secret organizations want its information and specs. So this time, it was serious work.

However, Chifuyu certainly didn't expect to see Taiga's little brother to wander into the forest in a suspicious way. So she decided to follow the boy. Thanks to that, she was able to see something that she didn't even think about before.

Right there, in front of her eyes, Shirou had made bow, arrows, and even a sword - if she wasn't wrong - appeared out of thin air and started attacking what she realized later were crows. Even if she couldn't see them clearly, Chifuyu could easily see that those weren't normal birds according to their way of flying around while trying to find the boy's position. However, in the end, for some unknown reasons, Shirou had failed to notice the presence of a fourth crow. Therefore, she decided to help him out a little seeing his intention wasn't aimed for the I.S's information that she was protecting.

_What was that all about?_ Chifuyu grimaced. She hated unsolvable questions, and no doubt that the mystery surrounding that boy was one of the biggest one in her mind right now.

_It wasn't like I haven't seen anything like that before though..._ The teacher noted silently while sipping on her cup. _What Shirou did was very similar to the progress of taking out weapons from an I.S's armory. But I've never seen anyone did that without at least partially deploy their I.S first... And the weapons' size were wrong too..._

Obviously, as the one who personally witnessed the Warlord's weapons to be installed, and had done many researches about all the items that were written inside the piece of paper that Shirou gave her, Chifuyu knew full well that there were indeed a bow and a black sword just like those from earlier in the boy's I.S.

"But they are supposed to be resized already..." She murmured, scratching her own head in annoyance. "And I'm sure that there's no arrow in it either."

"No arrow in what? Orimura-sensei?"

Suddenly, from behind came a voice that interrupted her train of thoughts. Chifuyu quickly turned around and see Yamada, who had just opened the balcony door.

"No, it's nothing, Yamada-sensei," She slowly shook her head. But after reconsidering it, Chifuyu said. "Actually, there was something that I want to ask you..."

"Yes?" The petite woman cocked her head to the side.

"It's about Emiya's I.S," she began. "You were there with me when the engineers finished adjusting its armory. Did you see them install any arrow in there?"

"Hmm..." Yamada looked thoughtful for awhile, as if trying to remember about that day's details. "No... I don't think so. Why do you ask? And beside, isn't Emiya-san's bow used the Warlord's energy to create arrows?"

"That's true," Chifuyu nodded. "Well, it's nothing important anyway. It's getting late, so I'm gonna come back now," she then started making her way back inside the building. However, while walking past her vice-homeroom teacher, another question popped up inside her mind.

"Yamada," she called. "I have a farvor to ask of you. Can you please send me the name list of all the engineers who worked on the Warlord that day? I want it to be on my desk first thing tomorrow morning."

"Eh...?" Yamada's eyes widened for a moment. But the woman then quickly answered. "Yes, of course, Orimura-sensei."

"Thank you," smiling a little, Chifuyu then turned away. "Good night, Yamada-sensei. See you tomorrow."

"Good night, Orimura-sensei."

* * *

On her way back to her office, Chifuyu couldn't stopped thinking about all the things that had happened.

_I will start by questioning those engineers one by one to see if any of them had secretly made another weapon set of smaller size, _She thought. _And I guess I will have to ask Tabane about equipping weapons without deploying the I.S too... That's only if I can ever see that woman though._

The teacher then sighed tiredly. She had planned to see the inventor of the I.S for awhile. However, all of her attempts for the two of them to meet turned out to be complete failures due to the fact that Tabane had to hide from many organizations that wanted the information that that woman possessed.

Opening the door to her office and stepped inside, Chifuyu then immediately sat down on the chair behind her desk and massaged her forehead as a headache started to appear.

_Should I confront the boy himself about this?_ She wondered, but quickly dismissed that idea seeing Shirou's past actions when he tried to conceal that secret.

"Well, guess I should call it a day," Chifuyu murmured. She admited that it was a tiring evening, but that wasn't without some good information in return.

_I've got one step closer to your secret now, Emiya Shirou,_ the teacher grinned satisfyingly.

**End of chapter 4.**


	5. Chapter 5: Mysterious Enemy

_**Author's note:**_

_**Finally an update. I'm very very very sorry for the delay. My other story took most of my attention for the past months. But I figured it was time for me to return to this one.**_

_**Thank you very much for every view, review, follow and favorite.**_

_**That's everything for now. Please enjoy.**_

* * *

Fate worked in a strange way.

Eight months ago, it pulled Shirou into a bloody Battle Royale to determine the owner of the supposed-to-be-wish-granting Holy Grail, which in the end turned out to be a tainted mess of what it used to be.

Then not long ago, its annoying meddling once again pushed him into an awkward position of becoming the only male I.S pilot. Well, there was also Ichika now, but technically speaking, Shirou was the only known one until a few days ago.

And it would be such a relief if only it stopped there. However, Shirou didn't have such luck.

This morning for example, if only Ichika hadn't remembered that he forgot to turn off the faucet just as they got out of the dorm for their morning practice and hastily got back up, or if Shirou hadn't decided to wait for him, _or _if he hadn't chosen to sit down on a bench while waiting, looking up to the top of the building (he was looking at the sky actually), then Shirou wouldn't have witnessed what he had, or maybe wouldn't have even been there when it happened. And things would've gone very, very differently.

But of course, we were talking about Shirou-Bloody-Emiya, who had the tendency of being pulled into troubles with or without his consent (mostly without, really). So obviously, he had decided to wait for his roommate. He had also sat down on a bench and looked up while waiting. And those decisions had landed him an invitation to the teacher's lounge, facing a pale faced Yamada Maya and a dead serious looking Chifuyu Orimura not very long after.

But we would get to that later.

* * *

This morning, Kiyoka Aikawa – a normal student of Class One, I.S Academy, member of volleyball club – woke up earlier than usual.

"Agh…Shut up…" She mumbled in annoyance while reaching out and turned off the alarm clock. For a moment, the girl had actually forgotten why she had set it to go off so early in the morning and closed her eyes again.

"Keep it down, Kiyoka," however, from the other bed, her roommate – Yuzu Tanimoto – murmured angrily. "Why on Earth did you wake up so early?"

"Damn it," that question acted as the perfect reminder. Kiyoka grimaced and sprang up on her bed so quickly that it made her dizzy. "I almost forgot," she then hurriedly climbed out of her bed and started dressing as quickly as she could. "Sorry, my club has scheduled an early practice today because of the upcoming tournament. I have to get there a bit earlier to…"

_Clean up the field a little, _was what she about to say before was getting cut off by Yuzu.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, just let me sleep a little more."

Kiyoka was tempted to say more, but decided against it and quietly went into the bathroom to freshen herself up. The funny thing was that, if Yuzu hadn't been bothered enough to speak up (because honestly, Kiyoka had turned off the alarm already, hadn't she?), then she might have totally forgotten what she was supposed to do that morning, and might not have witnessed what she has later on.

Fate really worked in a strange way.

But for now, after finishing the preparation, Kiyoka got out of her room, carefully not to make any noise that could wake up her roommate, and started making her way to the volleyball field. Just a moment later, she encountered Ichika Orimura, hastily walking pass her.

"Good morning, what's wrong, Ichika-san?" She asked to his back.

"Ah…" The boy stopped, turning back and smiled bashfully. "Good morning, Aikawa-san. I forgot to turn off the faucet in the bathroom, so…"

"Oh… In that case, you better hurry. Sorry for stopping you."

"No, it's okay, really. See you later, yeah?"

Waving his hand one last time, Ichika then took off again. Kiyoka then resumed her walk, smiling a little.

_I can never imagine seeing two male I.S pilots, _she thought in amazement. _And both of them are in my class, no less._

Of course, the topic about Ichika Orimura and Shirou Emiya was one of the hottest at I.S Academy at the moment. And a surge of pride welled up in her chest thinking of how other classes were jealous of Class One for having taken both of them.

As a matter of fact, almost all the girls inside the school were interested in one or the other, or even both in some cases. And Kiyoka herself wasn't an exception.

_Ichika-san is nice, I guess, _she thought to herself. _But I like Emiya-san more, he's more mature._

And just as Kiyoka got out of the dorm, to her surprise, the boy in question was now sitting on a bench not far away from the entrance. Smiling brightly, she was about to greet him. However, she finally noticed the scowl on his face while looking intensely upward. Following his gaze, Kiyoka was able to see what Shirou was looking at. And what she saw made her gasp in shock and freeze where she stood.

After that, everything happened so quickly, she was barely able to react when the boy in front of him deployed his personal I.S and dashed upward. Apparently, she also didn't notice when Ichika reappeared at her side; or the short exchange of word between him and Shirou once the latter had landed. Ichika then once again ran off immediately.

_I must tell her, now, _was the only thing in Kiyoka's mind before she herself turned and dashed back into the building, ignoring Shirou, who was now calling her name frantically and telling her to wait.

* * *

This morning (again), Cecilia Alcott was tired, which was very understandable given how she didn't get a wink of sleep last night and there were now bags under her eyes. But the girl paid it no mind. In fact, she was now more worried than tired.

Her roommate, who was also her closest friend in Class One – Shizune Takatsuki – didn't return to their room last night. That was very unusual, since Cecilia knew her friend very well. Shizune would never stay out late at night.

Of course there was the possibility of her staying at another friend's room. But in that case, she would've left a note or something. Anyway, Cecilia had also thought of that, and went around in the middle of the night, asking every room that she knew belonged to Shizune's acquaintances, Shirou and Ichika's room included, but the girl was nowhere to be found.

In the end, she decided to wait. If her friend didn't show up before classes started, she would go and inform the teachers.

However, around six fifteen in the morning, there were frantic knocks on her door.

"Shizune-san, where have you…" Cecilia said while hastily ran out and open the door. But to her surprise, it wasn't Shizune, but another classmate, Kiyoka Aikawa. And Cecilia instantly realized that something had gone wrong seeing the horrifying expression on the girl's face, together with the fact that she rushed all the way here, breathing heavily.

"What happened," she asked, trying not to appear too panicked.

"Sh…Shizune-san…" Kiyoka stuttered, still trying to catch her breath. "She…She jumped off the dorm building just earlier."

And Cecilia froze at the answer.

* * *

This morning, as usual, Shirou Emiya woke up early for his morning routine. And as usual, it didn't take him very long to change into his track suit before going to freshen himself up in the bathroom.

After he had done, Shirou stepped back in the main room and saw his roommate – Ichika Orimura had also woken up. Apparently, he would be joining him in the practice today.

"Good morning, Shirou," the guy greeted him, stretching his body.

"Good morning, Ichika," he nodded. "You better hurry up a bit. We still have to return in time for breakfast. Houki will kill us if we're late."

"I think she won't mind sleeping in a little," Ichika shrugged and they both chuckled remembering how the girl looked right after getting out of bed the previous morning. However, Ichika still got up quickly and went to the bathroom while Shirou taking out his bokken (and projected another after his roommate got out of sight). He then sat on his bed and waited. Not very long after, Ichika came back and they both got out of the room, heading downstairs.

"So what do you usually do during these practices?" The guy asked, yawning a little.

"A bit of everything," Shirou answered. "Push-up, sit-up, squats, running. And now with you here, I hope we could do a little sparring as well," he held up the two bokkens in his hand.

"Sounds fun."

"Oh, it is."

The two boys grinned at each other.

"Can I ask you a question?" Shirou asked.

"You just did," Ichika laughed. "Go ahead, though."

"Right, what happened with you and Ling-san yesterday?" He inquired, recalling part of his conversation with Houki, Ling and Cecilia last night in Houki's room where the Chinese girl went on and on about how much of an idiot her childhood friend was.

"Eh…" Ichika grimaced, blushing slightly. "Apparently, I forgot some kind of promise with her and she got mad."

_Sounds about right, _Shirou sighed. His doubt from the other day was spot on.

"Really, I can't remember it at all. And now she makes another promise to crush me in the tournament…"

"Tough luck, mate," Shirou patted him on his shoulder. "Guess I and Alcott-san will have to help you get used to your I.S as soon as possible."

That was another agreement from the previous evening's conversation.

"To be honest, I think you will make a better class rep than me," Ichika shrugged. "At least you've already had an official match."

"It's not a big deal, I lost, remember? Besides, I've never seen myself suited to be in the spotlight. I'll do my best to help you prepare though."

"Thanks. And it's not like we have another choice now anyway."

"Indeed," Shirou nodded in agreement as the boys walked out of the dorm into the fresh morning air. It was quite cold; making both off them pulled their collar higher to shield their faces.

However, just as Shirou took another step, Ichika suddenly stopped him.

"Hold on a sec," the guy slapped his forehead. "I think I forgot to turn off the faucet in the bathroom. Let me check it real quick, okay? I don't want our water bill this month to starve us."

"Oh, okay. Be quick."

Ichika then turned back and ran off, leaving behind a slightly confused looking Shirou. He then snorted and shook his head slowly.

_Well, it's still early, _he thought. _It wouldn't be right to ditch that guy now._

With that in mind, Shirou walked over to the nearest bench and sat down. He then leaned back, looking up at the sky. It was a clear morning, perfect for working out. But he would have to find another way to perform his routine in a couple of months though. Once the snow came, outdoor exercises would no longer be possible.

Shirou the sighed deeply and shift his gaze a little, upon the building. That was when he saw her.

Short blue hair swaying in the wind, wearing I.S Academy's uniform, Shizune Takatsuki was standing on top of the dormitory. Well, that by itself was nothing unusual. However…

_Why the heck is she standing outside of the fence? _Gritting his teeth, Shirou stood up. His enhanced vision allowed him to see his classmate's face more clearly. Shizune was wearing a strange empty, lifeless expression and her eyes were unfocused. _That can't be normal. Don't tell me she…_

But before he could finish that thought, the girl took a step forward, allowing herself to fall off the building.

"Damn it," Shirou swore loudly, instantly deploying the 'Warlord' and dashed upward. Luckily, he was able to catch Shizune just as she started falling. In truth, even after landing, his brain was still not able to comprehend what just happened. Shirou breathed wildly, staring at the girl in his arms, who was now unconscious. _Why did you do that, Takatsuki-san? _He wondered. But in the back of his mind, he knew that something's not right. The looks on her face before she jumped, it sent a chill down his spine.

"Shirou, what's wrong?" Ichika's voice made Shirou's head spun back. The guy had returned, and standing beside him was a frozen struck girl whose name Shirou couldn't remember right away, his brain was still a bit foggy after all.

"Ichika," finally, he snapped out of it. "Call the teachers. Now!"

"What happened?"

"Damn it. Someone tried to commit suicide. Go!"

Apparently, that was enough. Ichika turned on his heel and left.

"Aikawa-san…" Shirou remembered the other girl's name now. She was his classmate after all. "Can you please…"

But before he could finish that sentence, she ran back inside the dorm as well.

"Aikawa…Agr…" Shirou grunted angrily as Kiyoka Aikawa disappeared down the hallway, completely ignored his call. He shook his head in resignation before carrying the unconscious Shizune back to the dorm's infirmary.

* * *

"And that's everything. You guys came shortly after," Shirou finished his report with a heavy sigh as he leaned back on his chair in the teacher's lounge.

"Thank you, Emiya-san," Chifuyu nodded from the seat in front of him. "Are you sure that's everything?"

"Pretty sure. Yeah."

"So do you have any idea why Takatsuki-san might want to take her own life?" She asked. "Anything abnormal in her behaviors lately?"

"Not that I can think of. No," Shirou shook his head. "I'm not that close with her. But from what I see, she was just like normal every time I see her."

"I see," Chifuyu said tiredly. It seemed like she still wanted to question him some more. However, after awhile, she waved him off. "You can leave now. And if you don't mind, please inform your classmates that all of the classes today are canceled."

"I will, Orimura-sensei," he then walked out of the room. It was now Ichika's turn to report. Giving the guy a slight nod, Shirou then started making his way back to the dorm, all the while thinking about the suicide of his classmate. There was something not right, he was sure about that, but couldn't really explain it either. He noticed it while holding Shizune in his arms earlier, but his damned brain couldn't recall it when needed, which was right now, for example.

_Maybe if I can see her again… _He thought. Unfortunately, for the time being, Shizune was lying in the infirmary, still unconscious, and visitors weren't allowed until further investigation.

Lost in thoughts, Shirou almost missed the sight of a dejected blond sitting on a bench outside of the staff's building. Obviously, Shizune was her friend. It must've been disheartening for her hearing such news.

"Alcott-san," he approached her and greeted. "How are you?"

Looking up at him for a moment, Cecilia then just shook her head sadly without saying anything, before turning her eyes back to the ground. It was very weird seeing the proud English girl in such pitiful state, bags under her eyes, her hair was quite a mess and her smile was nowhere to be seen. As much as the girl annoyed him, Shirou couldn't stand seeing her like that.

"I'm sorry about Takatsuki-san," he said sincerely while taking the seat next to her. "I'm sure she will be alright. She's just unconscious now, no physical damage."

"You have nothing to be sorry about," Cecilia looked at him and waved her hand. "If it wasn't for you, Shizune…she would've…"

"You don't have to say it. I'm just glad to be there at the right time," Shirou smiled encouragingly.

"She was my only close friend, you know?"

He nodded.

"It's just the beginning of term, and I haven't been able to get to know many people," Cecilia continued. She looked like she wanted to cry, but was trying her hardest to fight against it. "Since she's my roommate, it's natural that we're close with each other. She didn't come back to our room last night, remember? It…It was just so sudden…"

"Indeed. Did she behave any differently before?"

The blond shook her head quietly.

"That's what I believe too. I just can't imagine someone like Takatsuki-san doing something like that," he mused. "There must be a reason…"

"Well, at least she's okay now, thanks to you, Emiya-san," Cecilia turned to Shirou and gave him a gentle smile that he hadn't seen before. "I have to prepare for my report as well. But I don't have much to say, really. But all in all, I shouldn't dwell on this too much. I will try to talk to her as soon as possible though."

"Of course," Shirou nodded. "Don't worry too much. I don't like seeing you sad like that. And I'm sure Takatsuki-san doesn't, either."

Upon hearing his words, Cecilia stared at him with wide eyes and blushed a little. She then chuckled softly and turned away, waving her hand.

"Thank you, Emiya-san," she said while walking into the building. "See you later. I'll distract myself by trying to figure out who you really are in the meantime," the girl then turned around and winked at him mischievously before stepping into the teacher's lounge just as Ichika emerged, having finished his report.

"Alcott-san seems awfully cheerful, doesn't see?" The guy asked as he saw Shirou. "She looked really heartbroken just awhile ago."

"That's… Well, at least she's feeling better," Shirou shrugged. He knew that Cecilia was just faking it. But at least she was able to fake it now, so that's an improvement. "Let's go back to the dorm then. It's too late for morning exercises now. I'm sure Houki's fuming in her room waiting for us. And then we have an entire day to waste. I can help you with your I.S then."

"Eh… actually, Shirou…" Ichika stammered, making Shirou raised an eyebrow. "I think we won't be able to practice this afternoon. I was banned from using my I.S until next week…"

"What? But the tournament is next week. Why…?"

"This shouldn't be discussed in public," the guy shook his head and said solemnly. "Come, I'll tell you once we got back to the dorm."

* * *

"So you're saying Takatsuki-san tried to steal your I.S's file last night?" Shirou asked, pacing back and forth anxiously inside Houki's room. The girl was now sitting dumbfounded on a chair after learning the reason why her friends showed up late that morning. Ling, on the other hand, was now throwing Ichika with dagger-like glares.

"That's what Chi…Orimura-sensei told me," Ichika nodded, eyeing the Chinese girl carefully. "Please don't tell this to anyone else, or she will kill me."

Shirou, Ling and Houki all agreed. Shirou then continued. "But how does she know that it was Takatsuki-san? And how does she know the target was your file?"

"The security camera caught her sneaking in last night, you know, at that maintaining centre in the forest. Apparently, the guard fell asleep and let her pass easily…"

"Hold on… The guard fell asleep?" Houki's eyes widened in surprise. "That's unheard of. The securities here are all professional that were chosen carefully. There's no way they would sleep while on duty."

"Apparently, that one did," Ichika shrugged. "Or at least that's what Orimura-sensei told me. Luckily another guy came by to ask for some hot tea. He spotted our classmate sneaking out and chased after her. She got away but dropped my I.S's file while running. From the looks of it, Alcott-san wasn't the only one who went around looking for Takatsuki-san last night."

"Why didn't they come knocking on us also?" Ling asked.

"Again, cameras," Shirou answered. "If she set foot into the dorm's main building, they would know immediately. The only place without camera in this place is the emergency stair that connects to the rooftop. But I doubt she stayed up there all night. So, back to the guard, any chance that he got drugged?"

"That's a possibility," Ichika murmured, looking thoughtful. "I should've asked about that."

"Again, why did that girl steal your file, and then tried to commit suicide?" Ling wondered out loud. "Was it the guilt? Hardly so. Even if that was the case, why wait until morning?"

The four teens then looked at each other in silence as no one had the answer for those questions.

_So a magus spied on that maintaining centre last night, and shortly after, someone tried to steal from that very same building, _Shirou had drifted back into his own train of thoughts. _Coincidence? Possible, but not likely… Is Takatsuki-san that magus? Even more unlikely, there's no reason for her to commit suicide if that's the case. Was she controlled by the magus?..._

He then recalled the strange feeling when carrying Shizune. Was it the faint smell of prana he detected from her? Was it really true? Or was it just his mind making up that explanation because of the possibility of that girl being controlled? Even Shirou himself couldn't be sure. He silently cursed himself for not paying more attention to unusual details. If only there was a chance for him to get near her again…

_Wait a minute, if that girl is really controlled, and was ordered to take her own life, then when she wakes up… _"Oh bloody hell," Shirou muttered angrily before dashing out of the room, ignoring his friends' calls and their surprise gaps. Taking a sharp turn at the end of the hall way and jumped down an entire set of stair, he rushed to the infirmary. Right after arriving, he knew immediately that something had happened. In front of the infirmary, nurses and doctors were frantically running inside and shouting something to each other. And on the other side of the hallway standing an utterly shocked Cecilia, frozen stiff where she stood. It appeared that the blond girl had just returned from the teacher's lounge.

"What happened?" Approaching the nearest nurse, Shirou asked. "I'm her friend, what happened to her?"

"That's…" The nurse hesitated, looking a bit terrified of his expression.

"I'm sorry," instantly realizing what kind of face he was making; Shirou closed his eyes and shook his head, trying to calm down. "But she's a very important friend of mine. Can you please tell me what happened?"

"She…She tried to cut her wrist with a fruit knife," the nurse shook her head sadly. She then continued, knowing the incoming question. "She's alright. One of us spotted and stopped her. The cut isn't deep. But it was obvious that that poor girl's mind isn't very clear right now, so we had to put her to sleep, and maybe transferred her to a hospital later…"

"Thank you very much," Shirou said, releasing a breath that he didn't know he was holding. His eyes quickly turned to where Cecilia was standing, but the girl had already left.

* * *

"Alcott-san," about five minutes later, Shirou was finally able to find Cecilia walking aimlessly inside the school's park. He quickly caught up with her. "Are you alright?"

Startled, Cecilia jumped a little as her name was called. She turned around, seeing him and sighed. "Emiya, don't sneak up on me like that," she then resumed her walk, now together with Shirou. "Thank you, I am now, just a little shocked. But that was to be expected, right? After a failed attempt, it's likely that she will try again."

Shirou nodded without saying anything.

"But it still bothers me. Shizune wasn't that kind of person. She's confident, reliable and happy. She and her boyfriend just celebrated their one year anniversary just before school started, you know? Yes, she has one from another school," Cecilia chuckled. "Many girls envy her for that. Sometimes I also feel the same. But why does someone like that wanted to die?"

"I wish I knew, Alc…" Shirou started, but the girl stopped him.

"Cecilia is fine. I'm still not very used to Japanese honorific."

"Then please call me Shirou."

"Right, Shirou," she smiled. "Sorry for making you hear me rambling. It isn't like me at all."

"I don't mind," Shirou shook his head. "Someone so close to you just tried to commit suicide. It must've been quite a shock."

"It is," Cecilia sighed. "But I think I will be fine. She's still alive, and that's good. I just wonder how her family and boyfriend will handle the news."

"I really don't want to be in their position," Shirou shrugged sadly.

"Indeed," the girl agreed. "Well, you're very kind to come and find me, Shirou. And thank you again. But I think you should go back, your friends are coming," she then flicked her head to the park's entrance. Just as she said, from there, Houki, Ling and Ichika were entering, obviously looking for Shirou.

"I guess I'll have to," he said. "But how about you, Cecilia? You're always welcome to join us."

"I appreciate the offer. But I want to be alone for awhile, please?"

After looking at the blond in front of him for awhile, Shirou finally nodded, saying goodbye to her and walked back to his friends.

* * *

Cecilia watched him leaving for awhile before sighing deeply and continued walking, trying to empty her mind but failed miserably. Shizune's actions affected the blond more than she let on. But there was no way she would let the others know about that. Then all of a sudden, Cecilia realized that she had just had a normal conversation with the mysterious Emiya Shirou the second time that morning. True, it was mostly her talking, but the boy had also talked to her without being defensive or nervous like every other time. And indeed, they've gotten closer somehow.

_Guess I've just figured out a new way to approach his secret then, _in the end, she shrugged. _But it was kind of a relief, being able to talk like that with another person beside Shizune…_

* * *

"Why did you run off like that?" Houki growled at Shirou as soon as he joined them. "You really surprised us back there. And…"

"And what?" He asked.

"Nothing, never mind," she shook her head.

"Well," Shirou sighed. "My apologize, I just suddenly realized that Takatsuki-san may tried to kill herself again after waking up, and in fact she did, so… But don't worry; she's put to sleep for now."

"So why were you out here taking a walk with Alcott-san?" Ling asked. And from the side, Houki passed her a grateful look that neither Shirou or Ichika noticed.

"She was there when the nurse told me about her friend tried to commit suicide again," Shirou shrugged. "I figured that hearing that kind of news twice on the same morning could be quite a shock. So I went after her and finally found her here."

"You did the right thing, mate," Ichika patted his shoulder. "I know that girl can be annoying to you sometimes. But I guess anyone would've needed a company in that kind of situation."

Both girls also nodded at his words, though Shirou noticed that Houki didn't look very comfortable.

_Maybe it's just my imagination, _he thought before starting to walk back to the dorm. "Oh well, let's go back. We can have a late breakfast. Will you join us today, Ling?

"Thank you, but maybe another time," the Chinese girl smiled at Shirou, before throwing Ichika a glare that made the poor boy flinch. "I'll see you guys later then. Bye bye."

"You really should make up with her, you know that, right?" Houki commented as they watched Ling taking off.

"Yeah, but…"

"You should do it quickly. At this rate, you will be joining the tournament with little preparation. And she will crush you to ash," Shirou added. To be perfectly honest, he was now torn between feeling sorry for his roommate and being mildly amused at his unfortunate girl problem. Ichika, on the other hand, paled hearing his words, and the boy's shoulders slumped pitifully.

* * *

"So you're going to help him?" Shirou asked as he and Houki walked between the stores in the electronic department of the I.S Academy's supermarket. Earlier, after finishing breakfast and Ichika had returned to his room, Shirou asked Houki to help him buy a cell phone since they had a whole day off. Needless to say, the girl was more than enthusiastic and agreed. Of course, all of that didn't happen without what Shirou now called 'Houki's customary blushing face'.

"Obviously, I feel sorry for both of them, mostly Ling, actually. She likes him but that idiot is just so… idiot," she then threw a subtle glare at Shirou and murmured. "Just like someone..."

"Pardon?"

"Nothing."

"Right. So what do you think about this one?" Shirou pointed to a simple designed dark blue and white phone through the glass. But he was only half interested in the answer. Right now, his reinforced hearing was trying to get a glimpse of what the gossiping girls nearby were saying. Once again, the information network of high school girls proved to be very efficient as well as terrifying at the same time. The rumor about Shizune's suicide attempts had spread around the entire academy like wild fire. And Shirou was trying to gather as much as clues possible from the students. Unfortunately, everything he'd heard until now was either rubbish made up stories or things that he'd already known.

"That's a nice one," Houki nodded. "But a bit expensive. You said you only need the basic features, right? Then how about this one?" She led him to the next self and showed him a black phone. "Besides texting and calling, it also has a camera. That may come in handy sometimes, you know?"

"Yeah, the price seems reasonable. Can you please let me see that one?" Shirou nodded and asked the brunette girl behind the counter, who appeared to be the shopkeeper. Holding the phone in his hand, he looked it over carefully and asked his friend to explain its features. After all, this was the first time he ever had a cell phone. It appeared to be appropriate though, simple and effective. The camera wasn't really needed, but just as Houki said, he might use it sometimes in the future.

"Let's take this one then," he told the shop owner, who nodded before taking back the black phone and went into the back of the store.

"Are you sure?" Houki asked, looking a bit disappointed. "There're still many others stores we haven't visited yet."

"Well, it meets my requirements, and I like the color," Shirou smiled. "Besides, if we wrap this up quickly, we can go for another groceries run before going back for lunch. You asked Ichika to meet you around one in the afternoon, right?"

"Oh, in that case…" The girl instantly beamed up as she watched Shirou paying for his purchase.

"Here's your phone," the shopkeeper reappeared behind the counter. "Your first one, right?"

"Yes, it is," Shirou smiled politely, receiving a bag with his new phone inside.

"It must be nice to have your girlfriend pick it out for you," she grinned amusedly, looking at the two teens. "Thank you for your patronage. Enjoy your date, okay?"

Her statement, however, made both of them freeze on spot. After short moment, Shirou facepalmed himself and sighed while Houki's face was now reaching the crimson shade of a ripped tomato. She stammered even before he was able to answer.

"That's…I…eh… We…We're not a couple."

Shirou nodded in confirmation, feeling his face heated up a little. They had been mistaken for that quite a few times already. It wasn't really an annoyance, but it seemed to make Houki uncomfortable every time. He still remembered how Ichika ended up after making that mistake.

"Really?" The shopkeeper raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry then. You two look cute together though."

That made Houki's face reddened even more as she looked away bashfully. Shirou, on the other hand, sighed again. "Thank you, I guess? Well, we still have more shopping to do though, so…" He then said goodbye to the brunette and started walking away.

"Goodbye, and good luck," the girl replied, directing the latter part with a playful wink at Houki, who nodded shyly while still blushing furiously.

"Why did she wish you luck?" Shirou asked after they got into the food department. He had calmed down a little.

"None of your business," Houki murmured, keeping her gaze downward. She then turned to him after a moment of silence. "Can I borrow your phone a bit?"

"Eh, sure. Here you go."

Taking the phone out of its box, Houki quickly turned it on and performed several actions that Shirou couldn't recognize. Just a few seconds later, she handed it back to him with a bright smile. Her face flushed slightly.

"Here . The first contact in your list is mine."

"You have a cell phone?" Shirou asked, a little surprised. And now that she mentioned it, he didn't know anyone's number, not even Taiga's. He was sure that she had one. But since that Tiger was at his house most of the time, he didn't think of asking her about that.

"Of course I do," Houki nodded cheerfully before pulling out a cute looking red phone from her pocket. "I don't use it often though."

"I see. Thank you for your help then. Now…What do you want for lunch?"

"Surprise me," she simply answered.

* * *

That afternoon, Shirou lay on his own bed, trying to sort out his thoughts. He and Houki had had a nice lunch just then, and of course, the girl, while didn't compliment him straight out just like usual, was surprised once again with his cooking skill. Naturally, there were still many more dishes that she didn't know he could make. And that made Shirou quite proud.

For the time being, Houki had met up with Ichika to do whatever it was to help that poor guy to make up with Ling, leaving him alone with nothing else to do. Normally, Shirou would use this kind of free time to hole up inside his shed, practicing his magecraft, or join Saber in the dojo. But apparently, none of those options was available now.

He then started thinking about Shizune's case. There was nothing new about that. It was likely that she was controlled by the same unknown magus that spied on the maintaining centre the previous night. That might explain the empty and lifeless expression on her face before the jump. But that was all he can assume at the moment. If only Shirou could get near her again, he would be able to recognize the foreign prana inside her, or at least memorize it more clearly. However, that was even more impossible than before, since Shizune was transferred to the hospital shortly after her second attempt.

His thoughts then shifted to Cecilia. Poor girl, Shirou couldn't imagine how it would feel to be in her shoes, but he knew enough to know that it wouldn't be easy. It was kind of strange to see a dejected, but gentle and honest Cecilia, like the one he talked with that morning. It seemed like the shock had made her open up to him more, and they had indeed got somewhat closer. Shirou was now considering the idea of throwing her a cheer up party or something. What that girl needed right now was the company of friends. It wouldn't be too wrong to assume that if he left her alone now, the girl wouldn't be able to sleep again tonight. She didn't deserve to be like that.

"Well, let's try to look for her then," mumbling to himself, Shirou then sat up on the bed, feeling something inside his pocket. Taking it out, he realized that it was just his new phone.

_I should call back to Fuji-nee's house and ask for her number soon, _he thought, now remembering his shopping trip with Houki earlier. At first, it didn't bother him all that much. However, after many people starting to mistake his relationship with her, he just couldn't help but think about it.

_Girlfriend, eh? _He chuckled lightly. Of course she wasn't his girlfriend. On the other hand, Shirou had to admit that any normal boy would be dying to be her boyfriend. Who wouldn't, really? Houki had a cute face, silky long black hair and a well developed body that he was fortunate to get a glimpse upon on his first evening here. Personality wise, she might be hard to understand, but wasn't that the same for all girls? All in all, Houki was a good girl, as far as he knew, and deep down, she was a caring and warm person.

However, again, Shirou had to remind that that was the case with _normal_ boys. He was not normal, by any mean. He was a magus, a distorted human. His lifestyle itself was dangerous. After all, being a magus was to walk with death. And as a highly undesired bonus, he had a tendency of running into troubles. Any girl must be very unfortunate to become his girlfriend. Obviously, Shirou didn't desire to force his bad luck on other people if he could help it.

_Out of all the girls I know, maybe Rin or Saber is the most suited for me when it comes to dating, _Shirou chuckled again. While being perfectly logical as all of them were involved in magecraft, and they had survived a battle royale together, making them understand each other more than anyone else, Shirou just didn't have that kind of feeling toward either of the girls. He was sure that the same could be said for those two too. Sure, they had slept together. In Saber's case, was to provide the blond swordswoman with prana to face Berserker, while the time with Rin was to establish a contract between her and Shirou, in order for him to manifest the Unlimited Blade Works to defeat Gilgamesh.

Of course, in both occasions, it wasn't just pure business. There were feelings involved. Trust, hope, friendship, partners in crime, whatever else, but Shirou thought that it wasn't love or romantic feeling of any kind.

_Or was there? _A voice in the back of his head asked, but he quickly dismissed it. There couldn't be, it was just a mean for them to win the War, nothing else, despite the feelings. After all, magus were ruthless people that could do anything to archive what they wanted.

Shaking his head to stop that train of thoughts, Shirou quickly stood up, wondering why the heck he even thought about dating out of all things. There were more pressing things to do. Figuring out about the mysterious magus for once, if that guy only spied on the school, then Shirou could just stop his attempt and be done with it. But now, that attempt had threatened students' lives. That magus must be stopped altogether, and if needed, permanently prevented from doing anything else.

However, Shirou might need Rin's assistance on this case as he was but just a third rate magus, no matter how unique. Therefore, there wasn't much he could do right now. The rumors going on around campus proved to be rather useless.

_Well, there's still Cecilia and her party, _Shirou shrugged playfully. All he had to do right now was to find the blond and convince her to attend it, or even better, surprise her with it. He should discuss this with the others once they came back from whatever they were doing.

* * *

"Wha…What is this?" Cecilia stuttered as she entered Shirou and Ichika's room. Earlier that day, Shirou had found her sitting alone on the arena's spectator seat and asked her to come to his room to 'discuss something important about the tournament' as he eloquently claimed.

"A friendly dinner that your friends put together for you," Shirou, who opened the door for her, said with a smile. Inside the room, Houki, Ichika and Ling had already sat around the dining table, which was filled with high quality looking dishes.

Seeing the scene, the blond's eyes widened. "Why… You said you wanted to talk about the tournament…"

"We will during dinner," he nodded and urged her to go in. She hesitated a little before coming in and join the other at the table. Her face flushed a slightly.

"I know why you do this," Cecilia said, trying to appear her usual cheeky self, but apparently it fooled no one. "I'm fine. You guys don't have to cheer me up or anything."

"Oh, but Shirou doesn't seem to agree with you," Ichika shrugged. "In fact, he's the mastermind behind this whole party."

"I should've known when he sought me out," the blond sighed, but a small smile was now tugging the corner of her mouth. "But thank you, everyone. And you too, Shirou."

"You're welcome, Cecilia," Shirou nodded.

"Hold on, when did you two start calling each other by name?" Houki raised an eyebrow while Ling leaned further into the table, apparently interested.

"Around this morning?" Cecilia shrugged. "After we talk. But it's mostly because Japanese honorifics confuse me. It's easier this way. All of you can call me Cecilia too, if you want, of course."

"Well, in that case. I'm Ling," the Chinese girl grinned, holding out her hand, which the blond took.

"Ichika," the guy said with a small bow.

"Eh…" Houki hesitated and appeared confused a little. She then threw a glance of resignation at Shirou before turning back to Cecilia with a gentle smile. "You can call me Houki."

"It's nice to meet you all," the blond replied. "Well, we should enjoy the food while it's hot, shouldn't we?"

All of the other agreed immediately. However, Shirou, Houki and Ichika, without saying anything to each other, all held back a little while subtly observing the other two, who were just about to taste Shirou's cooking for the first time. Obviously, they weren't disappointed.

"It's so good," Ling beamed up right after the first bite and instantly continued eating.

"Indeed," Cecilia nodded in agreement as her eyes widened a little. "These are really delicious. Did you make them, Houki?"

"No, actually, Shirou was the cook," Houki shook her head and pointed at a grinning Shirou while smiling happily.

"Really?" The blond asked in astonishment. "Just by looking at you, I'll never think that you can make these high quality dishes."

"Hey!" Shirou protested.

"Just kidding," she laughed. Her first real laugh today as he noticed. "Because you're a boy and…"

"Are you saying boys can't cook?" Ichika raised his eyebrow while reaching for his favorite.

"I'm not saying that," Cecilia waved her hand. "Just surprised, that's all."

"You're asking her that, Ichika," Ling added, grinning mischievously. "But did you help with anything earlier? I saw Shirou did most of the cooking while Houki gave him a hand."

"I helped preparing the ingredients," the guy retorted weakly.

"Doesn't count as cooking."

"Doesn't mean I can't cook," Ichika replied evenly. "After all, living with Chifuyu-nee means I had to do almost all the chores."

"I feel you, mate," Shirou sighed, but the others, beside Ichika ignored him.

"Then how about you enlighten us next time with your superb cooking skill?" Cecilia asked.

"Sure. I can't see why not."

"It's a deal then," the blond nodded happily. The teens then resumed eating and conversation ceased for awhile before Shirou spoke up again.

"Ling," he said. "It seems you're in high spirit today. What happened? This morning you even refused to join us because of…eh… reasons," he then took a glance at Houki, who was now wearing a proud smile.

His statement made both Ichika and Ling flush a little. Cecilia perked up in interest, noticing the change in those two.

"Eh… We…made up," Ichika stammered, scratching his head.

"Not entirely," Ling retorted, but she was now beaming. "I still won't forgive you until you remember what you did."

The guy shrugged at her words, but he too, was now smiling.

"What did you make him do?" Leaning close to Houki, Shirou whispered in her ear, making the girl's face heat up noticeably.

"I…I…" She murmured back, stuttering. "I told him to buy her a gift okay? A giant teddy bear that's in her closet right now. Get away."

"Bribery eh?" He mused, chuckling. "Good job."

"At least now you know what to do when you make a girl angry," she said before pushing him back to sit straight on his seat. Shirou now noticed that the Chinese girl was looking at him with amusement.

"What's wrong, Ling?" He asked.

"Nothing," she answered innocently. "I've just noticed that I'm not the only one happy today."

That made Cecilia turned her gaze upon him and Houki, who had once again started blushing.

"Oh…" The blond grinned knowingly, making Houki's face even hotter. Shirou swore that he could feel the heat even from his seat.

"What?" He asked again.

"Nothing," Ling and Cecilia replied in unison. Shirou then eyed Ichika, but the guy appeared to be just as confused as him. And his previous experience was now telling him that it would be best not to ask Houki anything while she was in her 'customary blushing mode'.

In the end, it took them almost an hour to finish dinner, and then tea. And for the rest of the evening, the teens just relaxed and idle chatted about a wide range of topic, from the school-related one, to entertainment, then to make up and clothing, which completely lost the boys. To Shirou's surprise, even Houki was able to follow that kind of conversation, though he'd never seen her using any make up and her clothes were always simple. Pretty, yes, but never to fancy.

And in the end, they didn't talk about the tournament at all. But no one seemed to care.

Around ten o'clock, they started to wrap up everything and returned to their own room. Waving goodbye and saying goodnight to Houki and Ling, the other three then stepped out to the hall way.

"Well, that was fun," Cecilia smiled brightly. "Thank you, Shirou, Ichika. I feel a lot better now."

"Glad I can help," Ichika nodded.

"Don't mention it," Shirou waved it off and returned her smile.

"I will return to my room now," she said. "Are you coming? We're on the same floor after all."

"Eh… You go ahead," Ichika answered to Shirou's surprise. "I have something I want to say to Shirou."

"Well, in that case, goodnight," Cecilia waved at them and took off. However, she turned back once more and grinned. "Shirou, this doesn't mean your secret is safe from me, got it?"

"That's…" Shirou was about to retort. But in the end, he just shrugged. "Well, that's about right. Goodnight, Cecilia."

"Goodnight, Cecilia," Ichika said. The boys then watched as the blond went ahead and disappeared upstairs.

"Alright, what do you want to talk about?" Shirou asked as the two of them started walking as well.

"Eh… You know? About how I made up with Ling…"

"You bought her a teddy bear. I know," he replied. "Houki told me."

"Eh, right, should've thought of that," Ichika looked bashful now. "About that, eh… Can you do me a favor?"

"I won't tell her that Houki helped you."

"No, not that. But yeah, that too. Though I doubt that Houki will keep it a secret."

"Then what do you want?" Shirou asked, a little confused now.

"Erm… It's not very easy to say…" Ichika stammered. "Can you please…eh… lend me some money for the rest of the month?" He then clapped his hand together and begged. "I'm broke. Who knows that a stuffed toy is that expensive?"

Shirou almost lost his balance and fell face first after hearing the request. Once again, he was torn between wanting to laugh out loud and feeling pity for the guy.

"Well, it's a giant one," he pointed out.

"It is. And I don't dare to ask Chifuyu-nee for more now. Also, it's too embarrassing to ask Houki. Please please please?"

"Ah fine," Shirou sighed and smiled, sliding his hand through his hair. "Okay, I'll help you. But I'm also not very rich. So I'll ask Houki to chip in a bit on your behalf too. Is that okay?"

"Of course. Thank you very much, Emiya-sama," Ichika beamed up instantly. He then threw his arm around Shirou's shoulder as they walked back to their room.

_Oh well. It's also helping people in need, _Shirou snorted.

That night, Shirou lay on his own bed, trying to sleep. He knew that he wouldn't have to try to hard as it was quite a tiring day. It started out strange but ended happy for everyone.

_I guess it's all good then, _Shirou thought before drifting off into sleep.

**End of Chapter 5.**


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